Lost Stars
by OctoberFiend
Summary: When Sawada Tsunayoshi was stopped on his way home by a fortune teller screaming about his 'once in ten generations of misfortune', he ignored the warning but then... "You are going to offer me your assistance. Or die." Tsuna started to regret not listening to the crazy fortune teller's warning. All27. Slight AU.
1. Prologue: Unlucky

**AN:** Hello~ Kisa/**Kage** are back again! Lately, we've really gotten back into our love for KHR so here! The title comes from the song Keira Knightley sang in the movie 'Begin Again' which sparked a scene that sparked this fic. **At 2 in the morning.** Ahh~ Keira's voice is so sweet~

**Disclaimer!** We are just one fujoshi who have a lot of time in her hands. **We do not own KHR or its characters.** ALSO! This fic is slightly AU!** And we may interpret characters a little differently.** But we hope you enjoy~

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**Prologue: Unlucky**

"THIS YEAR YOU WILL BE MET WITH MISFORTUNE SEEN ONLY ONCE IN TEN GENERATIONS! GO AND VISIT A SHRINE AT ONCE!"

"Huh?" Our story starts with him. Sawada Tsunayoshi, a 3rd year at Namimori Middle School. Tsunayoshi or Tsuna as everyone calls him was your ordinary below-the-average teenager. Tsuna was no stranger to his no-good qualities: his poor intellect, his abysmal physical skills and his terrible luck. So when Tsuna was stopped on the way to home by a fortune-teller screaming about his 'once in ten generations of misfortune', he didn't pay too much heed to the warning.

"HURRY!" The fortune-teller continued yelling. "GO TO THE NAMIMORI TEMPLE NOW!" He yelled, jabbing a finger at the direction of the shrine which coincidentally was in the direction of his home. "GO GO! QUICK!"

"H-hai." Tsuna said, walking towards his destination (home, not the temple) while trying and failing to draw the stares and whispers away from himself. 'Geez. What was with that man?' Tsuna sighed to himself. He has been meeting a lot of weirdos lately at the Namimori town. Tsuna ignored the thought and continued his way home when... "Hieee!" The ground under him just fell away.

"Ahahaha! What a loser! He didn't even see such an obvious trap!"

"That's dame-Tsuna for you!"

Ah yes. Our protagonist was so dame that even elementary grade neighborhood kids bullied him.

"Mou! Give me a break!" Tsuna cried, pulling himself out of the dug-up hole in the ground. At least the groceries that Tsuna had set out to buy were safe. He really had such bad luck. When Tsuna dusted himself off and looked up, he found himself standing right in front of his house. Those kids! Digging holes in front of other people's homes. He was going to have a very fierce (meaning hesitant) talk with those kids' parents tomorrow morning! "I'm home." Tsuna called out of habit, to an empty home.

His irresponsible father had swept in like a storm last week, completely unexpected and to the horrible shock of Tsuna who had believed that his father was dead since he was five. And after a piss poor explanation of his 'death', ("How the hell is being told his father had died at the age of 5 romantic?" Tsuna had screeched at his airily laughing parents) his father had whisked his mother away for some much needed reunion. The blond man just picked up his gentle brown-haired beauty in a bridal style hold and left, laughing and emitting hearts everywhere. They did not even pack or brought luggage with them! ("Why are you guys in such a newlywed honeymoon couple mood even after so many years?!" Tsuna had cried as his parents ran off into the sunset, laughing and giggling without a care).

God bless his mother's soul, because an hour or so after she was gone, he got a phone call from her which detailed how long they'd be gone for (the whole friggin' year was the answer) and how Tsuna needn't worry because the fridge and pantry were well stocked and his papa will be depositing money into his account every week. When Tsuna did check his internet banking account later on, he'd spit out the water he was drinking and gawked at the computer screen. 'Did construction workers earn that much money?!'

Tsuna sighed to himself and split his disposable pair of wooden chopsticks. This was the first time Tsuna was living alone and this was the first time he'd cooked for himself. 'Dear Ka-san, please don't worry about me. I, Sawada Tsunayoshi, will manage somehow.' Tsuna thought to himself. "Itadakimasu." Tsuna slurped down on the cup ramen. 'Hm... not bad, but maybe the seafood one would have been tastier.' He thought.

**BOOM! CRANK!**

Tsuna looked up at the loud noises, his cheeks still full of chicken curry flavored ramen and a string of noodles still hanging from his lips when the glass door that led to the front yard was shattered. "?!" A battered man followed through, slumping onto the now sparkly and not to mention, very sharp floor. A couple other men jumped through the shattered entrance, looking around wildly and upon spotting Tsuna, screamed out in an alien language.

**BANG! BANG! BANG!**

The four men fell. By now, Tsuna's jaw had dropped and spilled out the contents of his mouth to the dining table. Ew. Another man stepped through into the destroyed living room calmly. THERE WAS A GUN IN HIS HANDS! "Hm. I thought the house would've been empty." A pleasantly deep voice that promised Tsuna hell and high waters said. The man was looking over at Tsuna! The shadowed face of the man grimaced and one of his hands went to his ribs. He quickly recovered and smirked at the positively terrified and the 'very-VERY-close-to-bawling-his-eyes-out-in-fear' expression on Tsuna's face. "Chaos." He greeted, before a gun was raised and pointed in Tsuna's direction. "You are going to offer me your assistance. Or die."

"Hieee!"

A distant thought came into Tsuna's mind. A misfortune seen only once in ten generations. Could this be what the fortune-teller was talking about?! Tsuna was starting to regret not visiting the Namimori Temple when he had the chance.

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Mou! = 'Geez!' or 'Come on!'

Itadakimasu =Let's eat (this is something people say before they begin eating)


	2. Chapter 1: The World's Best Hitman

**AN:** Thank you for your reviews~ **And apologies for our disgusting pace of updating the story.** TTwTT Please continue to shower us with love and support though~

princesslolitatheorca654: **Thank you for your comment.**  
xChaosRebornx: Ohohoho~ They're only Italian-speaking men, although for Tsuna that would be quite alien, ne? Poor Tsuna indeed! Unfortunately, we and Reborn quite like bullying Tsuna so he will continue being bullied.  
Guest: **We are glad you like it. We hope you'll continue liking it.** It was Kage's idea for our personal input. **I told you it would work.** Hai hai.  
DEMON KING DANTE: Your review is priceless! Thank you~

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**Chapter 1: The World's Best Hitman**

It was a beautiful April morning. The sun was out, the birds were singing and the neighbourhood fat cat lounging on the balcony ledge of the Sawada residence meowed in content.

"HIEEE!"

The fat cat jumped in surprise and fell off the ledge at the loud scream that erupted from the room connected to the balcony. Thank goodness for cat reflexes. It caught itself and hissed at the balcony where more painful, loud noises could be heard before looking for another place to rest. Yes, it was a good day indeed.

'Today is such a bad day.' Tsuna cried mentally as he prepared a cup of espresso. His head was sporting a nice little bump, courtesy of the Leon-mallet. Reborn, the person who'd wielded the Leon-mallet to give Tsuna a rude awakening, was sat at the dining table and was reading a copy of the morning newspapers nonchalantly. Tsuna gently set down the cup in front of the suited man and stepped away quickly to put a safe arm's distance between them, just in case Reborn decided to hit him again with another Leon-transformed weapon. Reborn picked up the cup with fluid grace and sipped at the coffee.

Tsuna waited for the verdict nervously. "Not totally disastrous." Reborn finally commented. Tsuna sighed in relief and turned back to the kitchen, putting on an apron, ready to make breakfast for him and Reborn.

'Wait.' Tsuna was about to chop some lettuce for the salad he was making but paused. 'How did I end up becoming Reborn's maid?!'

***A few weeks ago***

Before Tsuna could make a grab for the phone and call the police, a gunshot was fired and there was a shearing pain in Tsuna's left shoulder. When he yelped and clutched his shoulder, Tsuna found it odd that his fingers were not coated with blood.

"It's a blank." The stranger who shot at him said. Tsuna thought he heard a hint of dark amusement in the man's words. Tsuna turned back and realized that none of the men who were lying on his impromptu shiny floor were bleeding.

Well, not exactly... They did have blood on them but Tsuna suspected that was only because they had sharp shards of glass piercing into their skin. Tsuna winced. Something clattered noisily onto the floor which made Tsuna look again at the suited stranger. He was replacing a clip of bullets into his gun and clicking it into place.

"These," That very gun was cocked and pointed at Tsuna. "However, are real bullets. So if you don't want to die, grab your first aid kit and get over here."

"Hieee! At once, Master!" Tsuna yelped, running over to get the first aid box that he knew his mother kept under the kitchen sink. He didn't even realize the term of addressal he let slip in fear. The man, however, did and a dark spark lit up the man's eyes, which Tsuna missed since he was too busy trying to navigate among the shattered glass.

In less than no time, Tsuna was cleaning a large wound that appeared to be caused by a knife on the stranger's side. The span of warm light olive skin in front of him was littered with a variety of scars. There were large scars ('Knives?'), small scars ('Bullets?'), some scars were brown with age and there were a few fresher, pinker ones. 'How did he get those?' Tsuna wondered.

"You'd have to sign your death certificate if you want to know." The man chuckled near Tsuna's ear. Tsuna shuddered at the feel of the man's hot breath on his skin. The stranger had a weird uncanny ability to read his mind for some reason.

"Um... If you don't mind me asking..." Tsuna glanced at the group of unconscious men that he had tied up according to the suited man's instructions. "Who..." Are you? Why were these men chasing you? Why do you have a gun? Questions continued piling up in Tsuna's mind.

"Reborn." The man said, cutting off the string of mental questions. Tsuna looked up at the man questionably. "My name is Reborn. The world's best hitman." Reborn said.

Tsuna nodded and put down the forceps that held the small ball of wet cotton. He reached for the roll of bandages and medical scissors when what Reborn said registered in his head. "H-hitman?!" Tsuna squealed.

Reborn smirked at the delayed reaction. "Hitman." He confirmed, putting the roll of bandages into Tsuna's hand. Tsuna immediately understood what he wanted and started to cut a patch of bandage to use as a dressing. "I suppose it won't hurt to tell you. They," Reborn jabbed a thumb behind his shoulder at the tied up group of men. "Were trying to steal intel from the mafia I work with. I was sent to make an example of them. Of course, I could kill them but that would just mean unnecessary clean up afterwards." Reborn shrugged. He smirked when Tsuna flinched at the words 'mafia' and 'kill'.

"Um... Reborn-san, i-if you could move y-your arms." Tsuna stuttered after he secured the dressing. Reborn blinked at the shy blush that spread across the small brunet's face and Reborn's smirk grew. He wondered what other faces the kid could make and leisurely placed his arms on the chairs on either side of him. Tsuna's blush deepened as he wrapped the bandage around Reborn's waist. The position was awkward and Tsuna had to wrap his arms around the very sculptured chest in something like a hug to bring the roll of bandage to the other side.

Reborn just watched the brunet work, his amusement growing with every shade of red Tsuna turned darker. Just to tease the boy, Reborn lightly bucked his hips, a move that startled Tsuna into falling forward and planting his face into the very well-defined set of abs. Reborn was rewarded with the sight of a vermillion face that spluttered apologies at him. How quaint.

Tsuna quickly finished and Reborn tugged on the clean yellow shirt that he made Tsuna get for him when the group of unconscious men started to wake. "Ugh." Tsuna, who was sweeping up the shattered glass, jumped at the sound. The only blond one from the group of 5 men saw Reborn and growled, waking his friends. "_Bastardo!_"

Reborn, of course, just ignored them; not at all bothered by the screaming peasants. He surveyed the damage done to his suit and frowned. He was going to have to order another one from Italy.

Tsuna, also hesitantly, ignored the men who were no doubt also connected to the mafia. Were they screaming Italian at Reborn? Yes... by the sounds of it, they were screaming Italian profanity. Tsuna sighed. Why were weird events like this just attracted to Tsuna?

A picture of a screaming fortune-teller entered his mind. Oh yeah. That's why. Tsuna sighed again and looked at the destroyed glass door to the front yard. How was he going to replace the door?

"My people will replace it when they come to collect these guys." Reborn voiced, once again reading Tsuna's thoughts as he grabbed a cup from the cupboard and turned on the electrical kettle.

'Is he making coffee for himself at a time like this?" Tsuna's eye twitched as Reborn set out to do exactly that. A grunt of pain from within the group of tied up men caught Tsuna's attention. Tsuna suddenly realized that their wounds, unlike Reborn's, were completely untreated and there were still glass embedded in their skin. He chewed down on his lower lip before making up his mind.

"_Cosa pensi che stai facendo, ragazzo?!_" A voice snarled. Reborn paused in his coffee making and looked up to see Tsuna kneeling in front of the men with the first aid box in hand. "_Allontanati da me!_" He spat.

Tsuna, surprisingly, did not back down despite shaking in his slippers ('Were those tuna slippers?' Reborn chuckled) and using tweezers, carefully picked out the shards from the blond's temple. At this, the blond quieted down, allowing the small brunet to tend to his wounds. Once the last of the glass were gone, Tsuna ripped open a small packet of alcohol-free wipes. "Umm... A little hurt." Tsuna warned in accented English. The blond looked taken aback by the warning but nodded and Tsuna set about to clean and dress the wound.

"You know," Reborn spoke up, sipping on his cup of espresso that he made as Tsuna treated the next person. "You don't have to treat them. They will probably get into worse shape later for attempting to steal information from a mafia family." The men flinched.

"That might be so," Tsuna said, not taking his eyes off the small lacerations on the man's cheek. "But Kaa-san always said this home is a safe haven for everyone. Even if they are from the mafia... and not entirely invited." Tsuna's lips curved into a gentle smile as he lightly pressed the band-aid over the wound. Out of all the expressions Tsuna showed him, Reborn thought that the smile suited him best. And the man he was treating must've thought so too because there were faint red spots rising to his cheeks. Before Reborn was even halfway through emptying his cup, Tsuna was done treating the injuries and was packing the first aid kit away.

"Oye, dame-Tsuna," Tsuna was not surprised to find that Reborn knew his name or even his nickname. "How come a kid like you is this good at first aid?"

"I... am kind of really clumsy." Tsuna laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. Lies. Reborn could see telltale signs of past encounters with bullies. Heh. Protecting his bullies, even in front of total strangers? Then again, this was a kid that helped out a hitman (although coerced to) and a handful of Mafioso.

A family picture caught Reborn's attention. In the picture was Tsuna who apparently did not grow out of his cherubic and rather delicate features that he inherited from his mother, the brown haired woman in the picture. Tsuna's mother was not unworldly beautiful, unlike Reborn's ex-lovers, but she possessed a soft radiant charm that made it hard to not find her attractive. And next to her, holding the teary toddler Tsuna was a very familiar blond.

'Oh. So this is that idiot, Iemitsu's home.' Reborn's eyes landed on Tsuna who was back to gathering the glass with a dustpan, and a smirk appeared again on Reborn's face. 'And this is his son, Sawada Tsunayoshi.'

"Reborn." Tsuna jumped at the sudden appearance of a man in his living room. He, like Reborn, was wearing a suit but unlike Reborn, didn't have a fedora on. Instead, perched on his nose bridge was a pair of sunglasses. "_Grazie per i vostri sforzi. Farò in modo che il nono conosce l'operazione è un successo._" He bowed as a couple of suited men showed up ('Where are they coming from? Is there a secret passage?!" Tsuna cried in his head as more and more men appeared out of the blues) and untied the 5 men to cuff them individually. "_C'è qualcosa che posso fare per voi, signore Reborn?_"

"_Assicurarsi che la porta è fissata al più presto possibile, Salvia._" Reborn said, nodding at the now glass-less door. Salvia nodded and made a call immediately, speaking rapid fluent Japanese into the cell phone.

"_Aspetta!_" The blond man exclaimed, stopping in his tracks. The CEDEF members paused and looked at him as he turned and stomped towards Tsuna. Two of the CEDEF members, Nepetia and Clove, stood protectively in front of Tsuna. He was a civilian after all. "I... Thank you for the band aid." The blond man said in a small voice and bowed. Tsuna blinked. 'He spoke Japanese?' Then, in perfect unison, the four other men who Tsuna had treated bowed and chorused a 'thank you' in Japanese.

Tsuna looked around but they all seemed to be speaking to him. He was stunned. He was just doing what anyone else would have done. Of course, Tsuna didn't know that it was probably the only act of kindness these men had experienced in a long time. The CEDEF members looked to each other, unsure what to do while Reborn chuckled softly into his cup.

"The pleasure's a-all mine!" Tsuna blurted out in a panic, sinking into an equally deep bow. With that, life was instilled once again and the men were led out by the CEDEF members. Tsuna chewed down on his bottom lip as he watched them leave. 'They won't hurt them, would they?'

Reborn, reading the words on Tsuna's worried face, set down his emptied cup. "It's settled." Tsuna looked away from the people exiting his living room from the broken door. ('They really could just use the front door.' Tsuna mentally sighed) Reborn crossed his legs in a grand gesture and leaned back against the chair. "I'm staying here as your personal home tutor. For having the world's best hitman as your home tutor, rejoice dame-Tsuna." Reborn said, giving Tsuna an evil smile that promised all sorts of hell.

Tsuna blinked rapidly, trying to comprehend what was just said to him before- "Ehhh?!"

***Back to present day***

And that was how our poor protagonist got a home tutor in the form of a very sadistic hitman. Today was the start of a new school year and our Tsuna would be a 1st year at Namimori High School, something that Tsuna was actually grateful for. Ever since Reborn declared himself as Tsuna's home tutor, Tsuna had virtually no leisure time.

What little of his vacation left was jam packed with revision lessons (where he would be electrocuted for every wrong answer he gave in answer to the test papers Reborn made him) and all sorts of other trainings, such as cooking (Reborn would hit Tsuna with a Leon-transformed fry pan if the food was not up to his standards), physical training (once, Tsuna was made to pull a rickshaw with Reborn leisurely napping in it the whole day around Namimori town!), survival training (Reborn left Tsuna in the middle of a mountain with no equipment whatsoever for a week) and even for some weird reasons, nursing (the kids at the Namimori daycare had a field day making Tsuna their little slave as Reborn sipped coffee and chatted** *flirted*** with the pretty moms).

Why didn't Tsuna protest against such treatment? Why didn't he just make Reborn leave, you ask? Well...

**CLICK!** Reborn cocked his trusty gun at Tsuna and shot at the ground between Tsuna's feet boredly as Tsuna did an awkward tap dance to avoid the bullets. Blanks or not, they hurt!

**POW!** "Hieee!" Tsuna jumped out of the way as a Leon-fry pan hit the wall next to him. Unfortunately, Tsuna did not manage to dodge the plate of 'unsatisfactory' spaghetti he'd made that was thrown in his face. The Leon-fry pan followed next.

**TEARRR!** Reborn chuckled evilly as the Chihuahua from the door down the street tore Tsuna's clothes open with its little sharp set of teeth. He did nothing to help Tsuna who was wiggling on the street and just enjoyed the free entertainment that was being provided to him. Oh. A nipple. Reborn smirked and nodded at the Chihuahua who upon his signal tore Tsuna's shirt apart, leaving Tsuna with almost nothing to cover his torso and more importantly, his nipples.

Anddd... that is why, ladies and gentlemen, Tsuna couldn't bring himself to complain or protest again Reborn's wishes. Much less, make him leave. When his mother called home, she just giggled at what Tsuna told her and said she was 'glad' that Tsuna is putting so much effort in his studies by getting a home tutor. How nice it must be to be so carefree...

"Dame-Tsuna," Reborn called out from behind his newspapers as Tsuna started eating his breakfast. "I talked to your principal and we came to an agreement that if you help with errands around the school, you will get extra credits to make up for the disgusting excuse of a performance last year." Reborn said, folding the newspaper away before his eyes narrowed threateningly. "You better do the work you're assigned with your dying will."

With such pressure from the charcoal eyes, Tsuna could only nod dejectedly and chew on his toast when a gunshot went off right next to his head. "Hieee! Reborn! What was that for?"

"You're going to be late." Reborn said simply. Tsuna looked over at the clock on the kitchen wall and his jaw dropped. 8:23?!

"Why did you wake me up so late Reborn?! I'm leaving!" Tsuna yelped, shoving the piece of toast in his mouth and ran out of the house. Leon made a clicking sound from the rim of Reborn's hat.

"I agree. That dame-Tsuna really needs to start wearing a watch." Reborn said with a smirk. The clock on the microwave oven behind Reborn flashed 8:01.

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Bastardo = Bastard

Cosa pensi che stai facendo, ragazzo? = What do you think you're doing, boy?

Allontanati da me! = Get away from me!

Grazie per i vostri sforzi. Farò in modo che il nono conosce l'operazione è un successo. = Thank you for your efforts. I will make sure that the ninth knows the operation is a success.

C'è qualcosa che posso fare per voi, signore Reborn? = Is there anything I can do for you, sir Reborn?

Assicurarsi che la porta è fissata al più presto possibile, Salvia. = Make sure that the door is fixed as soon as possible, Salvia.

Aspetta! - Wait!


	3. Chapter 2: The Namimori Allstar

**AN:** We love when you favorite us! **And follow us!** And most of all, when you REVIEW us! We also love your patience. **You all deserve virtual hugs.** *dual hugs~*

xChaosRebornx: We don't blame you for forgetting! **We really are quite useless at updating but we hope you'll still stick around through out!** XD And let's face it. Tsu-kun is just irresistible when he smiles. :3

**Great**: HELLO and thank you for your review~ I give you the second member of the 27 harem~ **And as for being Vongola Decimo… we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?  
**  
twilightserius: Ohohoho! Reborn is very pervy indeed! **As for sleeping arrangements! Tsuna got Reborn (with much difficulties) to sleep in the guest room. But the hitman likes napping in Tsuna's bed for reasons.  
**  
**Alternative Angel**: Omg. Your review is so detailed! We feel most unworthy for such extensive review but yes! **We read through everything multiple times to make sure everything is grammatically sound but sometimes, we may miss a thing or two and for that we are eternally sorry and embarrassed.** AND OH MY GAWD! YES! WE ARE HUGE FANS OF TSUBAKI-SENSEI'S WORKS! (**we heard she has a new manga series out?**)

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**Chapter 2: The Namimori Allstar**

"Sawada! Clean these, will you?" A voice called out before a bunch of baseball bats were handed to him.

"Sawada! Refills!" Another voice called as a hand waved an empty water bottle around in the air.

"Where's the towels? Sawada!"

Tsuna hurried to satisfy their demands. He put the bats down in a corner before bringing over the stack of clean towels and filled water bottles. Then he took away the emptied bottles to the corner where he'd put the bats and started cleaning the bats with a piece of cloth.

It just so happened that the baseball club lacked a manager and so while the club looked for one, Tsuna was assigned to temporarily fill in the spot as part of his extra credits. The only reason why Tsuna wasn't the baseball club's actual manager was because the boys really wanted a female manager this year and since Tsuna was obviously not a female (despite his rather effeminate looks), he was only a temporary one.

Although it was the first day back to school, the baseball club was one of the really popular clubs at Namimori and the club was filled to the point they were actually having a tryouts already. Of course, the star at the tryouts was-

**THUNK!**

A whistle blew. "Homerun!" The tall, tan player with the bright easygoing smile laughed, accepting the high fives thrown his way.

Yamamoto Takeshi.

Yamamoto was a great player and while his batting skills were better, his pitches were no joke as well. A fast ball from him can easily knock a person out. Tsuna should know since he had been an accidental victim to one of Yamamoto's throws once upon a time.

"Yo Tsuna! You're working hard." Yamamoto said as he slumped onto the bench next to Tsuna, reaching for one of the water bottles. "Woah. Are you supposed to clean all of those today? Are you going to be alright with that?" Yamamoto asked, pointing at the large pile of baseball bats and helmets that had suddenly been added to the pile. ('Where did that come from?!' Tsuna cried in his head)

Tsuna shrugged and resumed cleaning. "It's fine, Yamamoto-san. I've had worse." There was more than one occasion where Reborn made Tsuna clean the house spotlessly and even forcibly made him volunteer to clean the Namimori temple during the weekends. In the traditional 'wash-cloth-in-a-bucket-and-bamboo-broom' style. No mops, no vacuum cleaners. Reborn didn't even allow Tsuna the use of a duster!

"Let me help. We had to do a lot of things like this during my first year on the team so I have lots of experience!" Yamamoto laughed, grabbing a cloth himself. This was probably why Yamamoto was so popular with the girls and boys in the school. His cheerful, easy going nature just pulled people in. Plus, Yamamoto never called Tsuna 'dame' even once. He was a genuinely nice guy and Tsuna admired that.

With two people working, the pile of dull helmets and baseball bats soon disappeared and were replaced with gleaming, brand new looking ones. Yamamoto had a rather one sided conversation with Tsuna as they worked, with only a couple shy comments from Tsuna, not that the baseball player minded. As Tsuna stood proudly over the clean equipment, Yamamoto packed up his stuff. "Now then! I have to go. I promised my old man I would help him out at the restaurant."

"A-ah! Take care on the way. A-and thank you for helping me, Yamamoto-san." Tsuna said quickly, sinking into a deep bow.

Yamamoto blinked before he laughed pleasantly. "Just call me Yamamoto! Yamamoto-san is my old man, you know. Well, see you later then, Tsuna." The baseball player waved before leaving the clubroom. Tsuna let out a deep sigh. That was the first time he actually had a proper conversation with Yamamoto despite knowing him since elementary school. 'He is such a nice person.' Tsuna thought. 'Unlike a certain home tutor.' (Somewhere in the distance, Reborn paused in whatever he was doing and smirked. He was going to have to teach some respect to that dame student of his.)

"Oh Sawada, that's not bad." The baseball coach said, looking at the gleaming equipments. "Tryouts are done so we're done for the day. If you could just put away the balls, you can go."

"Hai sensei." Tsuna nodded, jogging out to the pitch where baseballs were scattered about from the tryouts. It didn't take long for Tsuna to pick up all the balls but since there were no real club activities going on (it was just the start of the school year after all), pretty much everyone was gone and Namimori High was quiet. Tsuna dragged the net of baseballs into the corner of the sports equipment shed and wiped the little sweat on his brows with an odd sense of accomplishment when something caught Tsuna's eyes. "Huh?"

A small blue origami of a dog lay crumpled in the corner where Tsuna had dragged in the net of balls. Tsuna picked it up and noticed shadows of writings on the origami. A wave of curiosity washed over Tsuna and he carefully unfolded the origami to find something like a note written in it.

"Baseball was fun today! The kids at the tryouts this year looked eager to play. Baseball for life~?" Tsuna read out before he chuckled. What an odd person. He even added a star at the end of his words. Tsuna looked around, making sure that no one was around to see before he took one of the papers lying around in the shed and wrote a couple of sentences on it. When Tsuna finally left the sports equipment shed, a small white origami of a bird was standing under the shadows of the net of baseballs.

**8027**

Tsuna chewed on his bottom lip whilst looking at the bag of coffee beans in his hands and the price tag on the shelf for the 'Lavazza Super Crema Espresso Whole Bean Coffee'. It was one of the only Italian coffee bean brands Tsuna could get his hands on and the due to the high import price, the supermarket has a limited amount of them. Only five bags of this particular brand of coffee beans were sold on a weekly basis. Compared to the other brands, it cost far too much but Reborn's excellent taste buds were accustomed to Italian coffee beans (plus Reborn frowned upon conveniently made instant coffee) and this particular brand happened to be the hitman's favorite.

'Well, Kaa-san always said you have to go the extra mile as a host.' Tsuna reminded himself about his kind hearted mother's principles. So ignoring the price tag, Tsuna took all five of the bags and walked to the counters to check out. Those coffee beans were really the only costly thing he spends his allowance on anyways. Plus, Tsuna did note that feeding Reborn Japanese convenience store instant coffee made him more cranky than usual. And that meant the consequences of most of Tsuna's actions were steep and came in the form of a Leon-transformed weapon.

A couple minutes after Tsuna went to the counters to check out, another male came to stand in front of the shelve for coffee beans. This stranger gawked at the empty space behind the product plate of the only Italian coffee brand in the store. How was this possible?! "Who the hell keeps buying all of the fucking Lavazza coffee?!" He spat in Italian; the venom in his voice startling several patrons of the supermarket.

The poor dear has been making trips to the supermarket every week to try to get his hands on one measly bag of the only Italian brand of coffee beans sold in possibly all of Namimori but nope! Some jackass keeps getting there beforehand and buying all of the limited five bags sold! (Tsuna sneezed at the counters and thanked the cashier as he gave Tsuna a free packet of tissue) God forbid our stranger not getting a taste of home. He started looking around, eyes scanning for a familiar royal blue packet that would have been found everywhere back home in Ital- there! THERE IT IS! THE BEANS!

He immediately shot into action and made a run for Tsuna who was now taking his change from the cashier. Unfortunately, for our Italian stranger, a timed sale for seafood started right then and a hoard of housewives blocked him from getting to Tsuna who was walking out of the store. "You bastard! Wait!" He screamed futilely before the wave of women drowned him.

Tsuna blinked and turned, thinking that he heard someone yelling for him to stop. But when he saw no one walking towards him or gesturing at him, he shrugged and continued his way home.

Our drowning stranger solemnly vowed that he will one day get a hold of the coffee beans. 'One day.' He yelped as he narrowly avoided getting stepped on by the women. 'Man… women during sales are vicious!'

Meanwhile, our oblivious protagonist made a couple of detours to arrive home with his arms ladened with plastic bags. Tsuna quickly became accustomed to carrying heavy bags of groceries since the Italian hitman could not be bothered to be doing domestic things such as carrying the shopping.

"Dame-Tsuna." That was the only warning Tsuna received before several gunshots were fired at him. If it weren't for Tsuna quickly throwing his limbs out awkwardly on instinct, they might've hit home. Even though Tsuna is always grateful that Reborn fired blanks at him, those still hurt. A lot. "I want those finished before dinner. If you get below 80 on any one of them," Reborn needn't do anything other than cock his gun threateningly at Tsuna for the small brunet to get the message.

"Hieee!" Tsuna dropped his grocery bags, grabbed the stack of papers and ran up to his room to work on them immediately. Reborn smirked to himself. He had to admit, it was fun making Tsuna squeal like that. Not even Dino made such amusing noises back when Reborn was the blond's tutor. Something caught Reborn's eyes and he crouched down to the fallen grocery bags.

"Lavazza." Reborn said, picking up a bag of the coffee beans. A fond smirk tugged his lips upwards. 'That dame student.' Reborn sighed affectionately, picking the grocery bags off the floor and putting the shopping away. Once they were put away, Reborn sat at the dining table where photographs were placed neatly. He laced his fingers together and propped his chin over them, running a critical eye over each and every single photo in front of him.

"What do you think, Leon?" The green chameleon made a clicking noise from his place on Reborn's fedora. Reborn's lips curved and he unlaced his fingers to pull the photo of someone's back near him. "That's what I was thinking. It would benefit Dame-Tsuna if he could befriend him. Hibari Kyoya."

The red armband of the Namimori Discipline Committee seemed to move with the fluttering coat in the picture.

**8027**

A week breezed by quickly. If Tsuna thought that school starting again would've made Reborn lay off him, he was dead wrong. In fact, the work that Reborn made him do piled on. And Reborn did not allow Tsuna the liberty of buying lunch at school or bringing leftovers from dinner for lunch. No sirey. Tsuna was made to wake up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 in the morning by Reborn for his morning jog. It was only after he made one round around the Namimori town that Reborn let him back into the house. And like always, Reborn would know if Tsuna did not complete his round.

Then after a shower, Tsuna was to make his lunch and do laundry and other chores which will keep him busy until 7:30. Then Tsuna had to wake Reborn up ("So unfair that you can go back to sleep when I have to do chores." Tsuna grumbled once. In reply, Reborn smacked him with a Leon-fly swatter several times until his cheeks were swollen and red), make Reborn's coffee and their breakfast before he left for school at 8. The upside to this was that he was never late (which helped his reputation amongst the teachers considerably) and as such, his classmates *bullies* did not have truancy as an excuse to make fun of him.

But right here, right now was the moment of truth. Tsuna stood nervously in front of the maths teacher. They had a surprise test yesterday and although Tsuna thought he did well on the test, there is always that chance of him being over-confident in his abilities. If he did well, maybe it will help erase the 'dame' label he had? He just hoped that he didn't fail the test because if he did, even god may not save him from Reborn's wrath.

"Not bad, Sawada." Tsuna hesitantly looked up to see his maths teacher smiling a relieved looking smile at him. "I see you've worked hard during the holidays. Well done." The teacher said, passing Tsuna the test paper. Instead of his usual 0 to 27 marks from last year, there was a whooping 80 in red on the top right hand corner of the test paper. Tsuna could not believe it. He took the test paper with shaking hands and returned to his seat. "Okay, I expected more from a lot of you. I understand it's only the second week back but your marks can decide your future and-"

The door opened with a slam, cutting the bespectacled teacher off. An angry-looking male with silver hair ('Dyed?' Tsuna wondered) and green eyes ('Foreign?') walked in with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his pants. A spark of recognition lit up in the teacher's eyes. "You must be Gokudera Hayato, the transfer from Italy."

"Huh?" Gokudera stared at the maths teacher who started to sweat under the dark glare. Girls broke out into squeals of 'so dangerous!' and giggles which told Tsuna that there was definitely going to be a fan club made in Gokudera's honor by the end of the day.

"E-errr... Please t-take a seat." The teacher stuttered. He let out a small sigh of relief when Gokudera turned away from him and trod down the aisle of desks when he suddenly stopped. In front of Tsuna's desk. Tsuna was rudely snapped out of the 'highly marked test paper' bliss when Gokudera slammed his hand on the table.

"Hieee!"

Gokudera's eyes were set in a fearsome glare and receiving the end of it was Tsuna; our pitiful Tsuna could only raise the test paper up to his face in an attempt to give himself some form of protection. Then the green eyes glinted with recognition and his eyebrows furrowed; a movement that added to the strength of his glare. 'It's him! The coffee guy!'

"G-Gokudera! Take your seat now!" The maths teacher exclaimed quickly to diffuse the tension in the air. Gokudera just snarled at the terrified small boy before he continued making his way to the back of the class. "Are you alright, Sawada?" The teacher asked.

Tsuna nodded shakily. The maths teacher shot him another worried look but Tsuna just shook his head and the teacher went back to teaching.

"Do you think Sawada knows Gokudera?"

"That dame-Tsuna must have bothered Gokudera-sama!"

"What could have happened between them?"

'That's what I would like to know as well!' Tsuna yelled mentally, feeling a hard pressure at the back of his head. Tsuna instinctively knew that if he turned around, he would find the new transfer student glaring a hole into him. Sure enough, when Tsuna turned to look, he saw Gokudera with a terrifying (and rather constipated looking) expression that emitted a murderous aura. Of course, Gokudera's newly formed fan girls found this all 'thrilling' and 'numbing' instead of shit-inducing scary. Even throughout lunch, Gokudera glared at Tsuna while violently tearing into the yakisoba beard from the cafeteria. Tsuna could only cry wavy streams of tears and question what he did to deserve such actions from a complete stranger as he ate his bento.

When the final class of the day, Japanese literature, finally ended, Tsuna couldn't have move any quicker to make a run for the baseball club room but apparently Gokudera was also quick. An arm slammed on the wall, blocking Tsuna's way out the door. "Hieee!" Tsuna shrieked as Gokudera pinned him where he stood with emerald eyes. If it weren't for those very eyes glaring daggers at him, Tsuna would've admitted that Gokudera had really nice eyes.

Gokudera Hayato on the other hand, was thinking how absolutely wimpy Tsuna's eyes were. They were large and currently tearing up a little and just so... wimpy. And wimps irked Gokudera to no ends. Especially wimps that always get all the bags of Lavazza Coffee Beans from the supermarket!

"What do you do with it?" Gokudera demanded, taking a step closer to Tsuna. Tsuna, in response, took a step away. "What do you," Gokudera said the word 'you' like it was foul. "Do with 5 bags of Lavazza Super Crema Espresso Whole Bean Coffee? Do you own a coffee shop?! What needs have you got to buy a whole line of coffee bean products, you selfish prick?!" Gokudera growled, taking a step forward with each uttered sentence. And Tsuna's back finally hit the wall.

'Lava…coffee shop? What? What is going on here?' Tsuna wondered. His expression of confusion seemed to further anger Gokudera and the transfer student's fist rose. 'Hieee!' Tsuna ducked his head, waiting for impact.

"Sorry but do you mind moving away from Tsuna and the door? We have baseball club activities now and Tsuna is our manager so we need him." Yamamoto's voice cut in cheerfully. Gokudera looked at Yamamoto and over his shoulders, where the faces of worried classmates looked back at him. Gokudera clicked his tongue in annoyance but walked off, the mask of eternal irritation on his brows. Yamamoto threw an arm around Tsuna's shoulders and walked with him to the clubroom in silence. When they arrived, Yamamoto let out a huge sigh of relief. "Wuah! That was close Tsuna! I thought lasers were going to come out from Gokudera's eyes. He's really intense, isn't he?" Yamamoto laughed. "Do you know why he's so angry with you?"

Tsuna started to shake his head but remembered what Gokudera said. 'It had something to do with… coffee beans?' Tsuna gasped. 'The limited Italian coffee beans that Reborn likes! Gokudera-san was right. To buy the whole of a limited product… that was very selfish of me.' Yamamoto sighed as Tsuna chewed on his bottom lip. A hand landed on Tsuna's head and ruffled his bed hair. Tsuna looked up (temporarily cursing his shortness) to see Yamamoto smiling down at him.

"Maa Maa, I guess Gokudera will come around. After all, Tsuna is not a bad person." At Tsuna's questioning look, Yamamoto grinned. "A bad person wouldn't work as hard as Tsuna did as the baseball club's temporary manager!" Yamamoto said as if it explained everything. Tsuna laughed and Yamamoto stopped breathing for a moment.

Everyone knew that Tsuna was bullied and was isolated from the rest of the class because they didn't want to be victims of the bullying as well. Yamamoto had always been ashamed to be one of those who didn't do enough; not that Yamamoto didn't try. Whenever Yamamoto would see Tsuna or anyone else in a bad position, he would happily lend a hand. But because he was always so busy with baseball practices, there was only so many times he could be around to help.

This all meant that Tsuna for the most of middle school didn't really smile. Yamamoto had seen the awkward, self deprecating smile plenty but a true genuine smile? This was the first. Yamamoto must've been imagining things because he thought he briefly saw flowers bloom around Tsuna's laughing face.

"Yamamoto!" Yamamoto snapped out of his daze at the call of his name and saw one of his teammate wave a gloved hand at him.

Convinced that he was indeed imagining things, Yamamoto put the image away. "Anyways, let's do our best today as well!" Yamamoto said, raising a fist in an encouraging 'fighto' way. Tsuna nodded and watched as Yamamoto jogged into the clubroom. Tsuna quickly changed into his P.E uniform and went into the sports equipment shed to get some cones for the club's training.

It was when Tsuna accidentally dropped the stack of cones, he saw it. A blue origami of a dog. Tsuna blinked in surprise as he picked it off the ground and inspected it. It looked different from the one he'd found yesterday. He quickly unfold it to find that indeed, it was a different note to the one he'd found before.

"Aha! Hello there, my origami friend~ I was really surprised to find your note waiting for me! Let's be friends!" Tsuna quietly chuckled to himself at the many stars drawn after the words. "Ah! Today, our class got a new transfer student. He looked intense and confronted one of my friends. I wonder if they had a past relationship." Tsuna read to himself in a soft voice.

So... This person was from his class. Tsuna felt a wave of warmth wash over him at the fact that somebody was nice enough to care and even considered him a friend!

Tsuna read on, "Oh! There was a huge party at my old man's restaurant last night. You wouldn't believe the size of the bluefin tuna that my old man got for the party. It was huge! And delicious~" Tsuna chuckled. "Tell me if you like sushi! And if you do, what kind? Maybe someday we can go for some of my old man's sushi, my origami friend!"

Tsuna was quick to write a reply out on a square of white paper lying about.

* * *

Maa Maa = Well well

Fighto = It's a phrase of encouragement. Kind of like gambette.


	4. Chapter 3: The Convenience Store Baito

A/N: **W**e** a**r**e** b**a**c**k! With finals just around the corner**\- Seriously, it's like two weeks left before we have freaking exams. But that also means the summer holidays are upon us so maybe you guys can (hopefully) expect a more steady stream of updates! As always!** Thank you very much for the reviews, favorites and follows. We live for them.** And you, of course.

Suzie: Thank you for your review~** We absolutely cannot wait to publish Hibari chapter**. We have one of the fluffiest chapter we have EVER written for our beloved head of disciplinary committee! Please stay with us until them~

**Great: Thank you for your suggestion! Now we can actually reply to the right person! As for Mukuro, what is he without his perverse personality?** But if you continue to follow the story, you will find that our pineapple is actually quite tender~

Backstage-worker: Let the fun begin, yes? **As for age and forms, since the story is slightly AU** (which you can tell from Reborn's literally smashing entrance, the interaction differences with Takeshi and Tsuna and Gokudera's dislike for Tsuna being over coffee beans),** Reborn is in his adult form**. And in his mid 20s which still makes him a cradle snatcher for going for our 16 year old Tuna-fish! **We have lots of fun making Reborn question the morality of his affections later on**.

Amerika Knight: OMG. Thank you so very much! **I also like to think we could do better with the reviews.** Hush, Kage! But yes, we agree.** Sometimes, in favor of dialogue and internal monologues, we sacrifice detail to gestures and actions. **But now that you have brought our attention to do, we will try harder with description so that the readers can envision the scenes better in their heads.

* * *

**Chapter 3: The Convenience Store Baito (Part-timer)**

"Reborn," Tsuna sighed, shaking the man on his bed. "Wake up."

Reborn had taken to napping on Tsuna's bed after he woke the small brunet up for his morning jog. It didn't matter that Reborn had gone through his morning routine of brushing, showering, etc. He would still find time to lounge around on Tsuna's newly made bed.

Tsuna looked down at Reborn who was snoring lightly on his bed. No matter how many times Tsuna sees Reborn's pink bubbles pajamas, he can never get used to it. Reborn looked ridiculously young without his suit on (which he'd back ordered a bunch from Italy) and his fedora (although there was a matching pink bubbles sleeping cap on instead of the fedora). Reborn even looked... dare Tsuna say it, quite handsome sleeping.

"Are you having naughty thoughts about me Dame-Tsuna?" Reborn teased, his voice deeper than usual in his just-awoken state as dark eyes opened to stare at Tsuna. Tsuna learnt to no longer take the bait but still his cheeks burned brightly.

"P-pervert!" Tsuna stuttered before fleeing from his room. Reborn chuckled at the innocent reaction and got up from the bed that smelt warmly of strawberries and peaches. Tsuna sure liked fruity shampoos. Leon suddenly jumped from Tsuna's pillow onto Reborn's hand and transformed into a cell phone. The second after he did, the Leon-cell phone rang. Reborn answered the phone quickly.

"Chaos." Reborn greeted.

"You better not be doing something weird to my Tsuna-fish!" Came the shout from a certain blond father. Iemitsu had learnt only last night from Nana who had her weekly phone call with Tsuna that a certain hitman had suddenly started living with Tsuna. And like all fathers, Iemitsu was immediately concerned about his son's safety ***chastity*** because Reborn was known throughout the mafia world for his dangerously wild techniques in bed… ahem, I mean, method of tutoring.

"I can make no promises. After all, I just got out of your son's bed." Reborn retorted teasingly, making Iemitsu scream all sorts of Italian profanity at him. Reborn simply put Leon-cell phone on Tsuna's bedside table as he swiftly changed into a yellow long sleeve polo, dark fitting pants with a matching suit jacket, did his tie with quick efficiency and replaced his sleeping cap with his fedora. He carefully laid his nightwear on Tsuna's study chair before he picked up Leon-cell phone again, noticing that Iemitsu had stopped screaming at him.

"How is he?" Iemitsu asked as Reborn walked down the stairs to the kitchen where breakfast and coffee was already waiting for him.

"He's good. Count your lucky stars that Nana raised him with manners. If he was left with your manners, I'd have killed him in the first hour." Reborn said, sitting down at the table.

"Just drop dead!" Iemitsu yelled. Reborn nonchalantly sipped on his coffee. Reborn was pleased to note that Tsuna was getting very close to how Reborn liked his coffee. "Reborn," Reborn noticed the shift in the blond CEDEF leader's voice. "There's talk that Smokin' Bomb Hayato is in Japan."

"I know. I called him to Japan. He's in Tsuna's class." Reborn said.

Iemitsu's sigh was heavy and the stress behind his voice almost tangible. "Reborn, we talked about this. Tsunayoshi is not going to join the mafia. I can't... no, I won't allow that."

Reborn sighed as well. Iemitsu has always wanted to shield his family from the spotlight of the mafia which was partly why he dedicated himself to work so much. Iemitsu had hoped that by doing this, Nono would overlook Tsuna. Had hoped that Tsuna would never have to experience the harsh realities of the mafia world. "Traditions are not kind, Iemitsu. Nono's time as boss is coming to an end. Tsuna is an heir. He has no choice." Reborn said sternly.

There was a moment of silence on the other line before Iemitsu spoke again. "Then... just take care of my son, will you Reborn?" Iemitsu said. There was a tenderness to his voice and Reborn let the corner of his lips tug up into a pseudo-smile. Despite what people thought, Iemitsu was very invested in his family and he spent every moment he could get with them, with or without their knowledge.

Iemitsu would be here in Namimori Town, disguised as the Easter bunny who treated Tsuna and his wife to chocolate eggs during Easter Holidays or show up at their doorstep as some kind of trick-or-treating monster during Halloween (despite the fact that the Japanese did not really celebrate these holidays).

Every year on Tsuna's birthday, Iemitsu would skip work to travel all the way to Japan, just so he can briefly see his son and wife blow out the candles from up the tree outside their home, before Basil or someone else would drag him back to work. And Iemitsu never missed the chance to drop by every Christmas in a Santa Claus costume to eat Nana's baked cookies that were left out for 'Santa' and leave presents for his wife and child.

Nana once caught him and that was the year, Tsuna saw that _dream_ of his mother and Santa Claus kissing. Reborn knew exactly how precious Nana and Tsuna was to Iemitsu.

"I will." Reborn promised. Right then, Tsuna came down from the stairs, freshly showered and smelling of strawberries and peaches in a casual outfit that consisted of jeans, an orange tee and a white half sleeved hoodie. The lack of school uniform reminded Reborn that today was Sunday.

"Reborn, can I ask you something?" Tsuna was saying as he sat opposite to Reborn.

"Huh? Is that- TSUNA-FISH~ IT'S PAPA~ PAPA MISSES YOU SO MU-" Reborn ended the call quickly and let Leon transform back into his chameleon form.

"Was that Tou-san?" Tsuna asked before shaking his head. No, that no good father of his was a construction worker. There is no way he knows Reborn or vice versa. "Say, Reborn, do you happen to know a Gokudera Hayato?"

Reborn swallowed the mouthful of croissant and dabbed the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief. The world's best hitman must have good table manners, after all. "Smokin' Bomb Hayato. His weapon of choice is dynamites. That and his habit of chain smoking gave him the nickname. He isn't officially with a famiglia but he is not someone to look down on."

'Just as I thought, he is from the mafia.' Tsuna thought, crying twin streams of comical wavy tears.

"Why are you asking, dame-Tsuna?"

Tsuna shook his head. "Just wondering." Tsuna gave a small reassuring smile. Reborn's fedora tipped down to cast sinister shadows on his eyes and Leon transferred into a fly swatter in a silent threat. "A-ahaha! Look at t-the time. I just remembered there's a sale happening at the supermarket. Didn't y-you say that we are running out o-of miso soup? Ahahaha… See you!" Tsuna said, running out of the house with a piece of his croissant stuffed in his mouth. Reborn rolled his eyes as Leon transformed back into his chameleon form and made a clicking noise.

"His empathetic nature makes him a bad confronter." Reborn sighed. Leon climbed onto Reborn's fedora and let out another small series of clicks. "It does make him a worthy boss, indeed."

**5927**

"How is this even possible?" Tsuna gapped at the road block sign that cut him off from the alley to the supermarket. This was the second one! There was some kind of pipe leak on the other street that leads to the supermarket and now, even this one is blocked?! God did not want Tsuna to go to the supermarket it seems. Tsuna sighed.

Oh well, looks like he'll just have to go to a convenience store. They should have everything he needed from the supermarket but Tsuna thought he could use some of the unused supermarket coupons his mother collected at home. Tsuna sadly tucked the coupons back into the coupon book that his mother left him when he felt his fingers touch something like a card. "Oh!" A _nanaco card_! "With this, I can earn points and save money." Tsuna grinned to himself. Tsuna looked around and luck must be finally on his side because there was a 7-11 right by the end of the road. Yes!

Tsuna hummed a little song to himself as he walked into the 7-11 and browsed through the shop. As luck would have it, they sold Reborn's favorite miso soup! Tsuna rejoiced. "Nami flavored miso soup for Reborn, _furikake_ packets for lunch, toothpaste…" Tsuna muttered as he put the items in the shopping basket. He added a couple of junk foods and snack items since Reborn wasn't there to stop him. He didn't expect it but the hitman can be such a nutrition freak sometimes. Tsuna smiled and walked to the counters, placing the basket on the counters. The cashier quickly and efficiently scanned and bagged the items.

"Do you have a point card?" The cashier asked.

"You accept nanaco cards, right?" Tsuna asked at the same time.

Tsuna suddenly realized that he was mistaken. Luck was not on his side at all because standing in front of him, in an employee uniform was a very familiar male with silver hair and green eyes that widened with recognition. "Gokudera-san!"

"Are you stalking me you-" Gokudera ceased his yelling at once when he saw the manager of the store poke his head out of the staff room. "Oh! Of course we accept nanaco cards!" Gokudera said loudly with a forced on smile that made Tsuna grimace at the sight of. But the fake enthusiastic act worked and the store manager's head disappeared back into the staff room.

Gokudera heaved a sigh of relief and wiped the nonexistent sweat from his forehead. It was hard to find a job in this economy, especially when you were a high school student who looked like a slacker. Gokudera had managed to land this job after much difficulty and he wasn't going to let this shrimp ruin it. Although, it didn't mean he was going to be nice to the kid.

"It's ¥5927. Pay up quickly." Gokudera grumbled. Tsuna hurriedly slapped the card on the card reader. The machine beeped and the transaction was complete. "Tch." Gokudera frowned, ripping the receipt out with more vigor than necessary. "Oi you. What is your excuse for buying all of the limited Lavazza coffee beans every time?"

"Huh?" Tsuna's head tilted but upon the 'don't-make-me-repeat-myself' glare that Gokudera gave him, he blurted out. "I'm really sorry! It's just that he just showed up out of the blues from Italy and my door was shattered and he drank coffee and suddenly said he was going to stay as a home tutor! Kaa-san said that a host must always go the extra mile for their guests and he gets cranky when the coffee is not made from Italian beans because he probably misses home and he drinks at least 8 cups of coffee before supper so I run out really quickly and so I always have to bulk buy the coffee beans and-"

"Hold up." Gokudera interrupted the word vomit by covering the small brunet's mouth with his hand. "What you're saying is that basically a person from Italy became a freeloader at your place and likes that particular brand of coffee because it reminds him from home?"

"Meemoader!" Tsuna muffled behind Gokudera's hand. 'Yes, that was the perfect word for Reborn!' Tsuna thought. Gokudera crossed his arms over his chest and nodded to himself.

"So it's like that. Those coffee beans are limited and pretty expensive, and we Italians do like our coffee with our meals. A freeloader would hardly be able to afford such expensive luxuries. Plus in this economy, bulk-buying certainly saves more money. I see... it's a cost efficient plan." Gokudera nodded to himself, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

'That's not it!' Tsuna yelled in his head. 'One of Reborn's suits probably costs about half of his house's mortgage! If he wanted, he could probably import all of Italy's coffee beans to Japan with a snap of his fingers!'

But Gokudera's frown softened and a grin appeared on his face so Tsuna didn't say a word. "Man, helping a fellow Italian out in such difficult times, you're a pretty okay guy. And you even accommodate them with coffee beans from Italy so they can feel at home in Japan!" Gokudera said, slapping Tsuna's back a couple of times in a buddy buddy gesture. He stopped when Tsuna started coughing under the force of the slaps. "Sawada," Gokudera started as he passed the plastic bag over to Tsuna. "About last time, at school... I may have come off harsh... and..."

Gokudera's words became softer and softer (and that constipated expression on his face took a turn for the worse) and Tsuna had the distinct feeling that apologies were not something Gokudera was familiar with, so he decided to save Gokudera the troubles. "It's fine Gokudera-san." Tsuna said with a small smile.

Gokudera let out a relieved sigh. "You really are a pretty okay guy, huh? Hey, if you need anything from the stores, just come by during my shift." Gokudera looked around the empty store before leaning over the counter and whispered. "I'll give you a discount."

Tsuna blinked at the thumbs up shot his way. 'Gokudera-san is... surprisingly nice.' Tsuna thought as a wide grin spread across his face. "Un!" Tsuna nodded. Gokudera blinked at the warm uninhibited smile directed at him. Were those flowers blooming in the background? Gokudera shook his head and watched as Tsuna waved goodbye at him and left the store.

Outside, hidden behind the shadows of a street corner was Reborn. He watched as his dame student make his way home happily while the Smokin' Bomb squinted into the distance and rubbed his eyes back in the 7-11; no doubt, Gokudera was starting to see the effects of Tsuna's smile. Reborn smirked, a little plan hatching in his head.

**5927**

"I'm home." Tsuna called out as he slipped out of his shoes and into his tuna slippers. Reborn didn't give Tsuna a reply as Tsuna walked into the kitchen to put away the shopping. Once everything was put away, he went back to the dining room and frowned at the sight of Reborn's finished plate and empty coffee cup on the table. "Reborn, you could at least put the dishes in the sink, you know." Tsuna said loudly, so Reborn would hear him from whichever corner of the house he was in.

A loud thunk alerted Tsuna that something was off. Tsuna stopped gathering the dishes and slowly walked up to the foot of the stairs. There. Another thunk. A gut feeling let him know that whoever was upstairs wasn't Reborn.

Tsuna bit his lower lip and grabbed the lamp off the table. He slowly walked up the stairs and thanked god that the stairs were not prone to creaking. He made it up the stairs and found the door to his room open and saw shadows of a figure moving around the room. Tsuna took a deep breath and braced himself, before slowly sneaking into his room. The sight that greeted him made him shriek immediately.

"W-What do you think you're d-doing?!" The stranger in a black ski mask was holding up something Tsuna did not want anyone but himself holding. Tsuna's face flushed a deep red as he yelled, "That's my underwear!"

And indeed, it was. In the leather gloved hands of this intruder was a pair of Tsuna's boxers. One very unflattering patterned boxers (teddy bears holding hearts). The intruder quickly made his way to the balcony of Tsuna's room and with one swift motion, opened the door. "H-hey! Where do you think you're going, you pervert!" Tsuna yelled again but the intruder ignored him and jumped down from the balcony. With his boxers. "Wait!"

Tsuna thundered back down the stairs and out his door, right on time to see the masked intruder disappear around the corner. No way was he going to allow his boxers to be used by some sick perverted boxer thief! He ran after the man, screaming at him to stop and return the... thing back to him.

This person was incredibly athletic. However, if he thinks that Tsuna will give up his pursuit, he was dead wrong. Tsuna was going to chase him with his dying will!

His running posture straightened itself out as he ran to ensure maximum speed. Reborn's voice nagged at him about regulating his breathings in his head and Tsuna did that; breathing in through his nose and out his mouth. As much as he hated to admit it, Tsuna was thankful that Reborn had him running every day in the morning.

But it became harder and harder to keep up. Tsuna's speed started slipping. He even lost the boxer thief a couple of times! While on the other hand, the boxer thief's pace was consistent. Tsuna had the distinct feeling that thief could run faster but didn't run to his full speed. Tsuna realized with a start that this chase was more of a game to the thief and that just irritated Tsuna even more. Tsuna wasn't paying attention to where he was running since all his attention was focused on the boxer thief but if he had paid attention, Tsuna would have noticed that he was back on the street of the 7-11 where Gokudera worked.

"_Otsukaresama_." Gokudera bowed at the store manager who just grunted in reply. Gokudera walked out of the convenient store before allowing himself a sigh. Finally, it was the end of his shift. After Sawada, nobody came and so manning the empty store became a tedious job for him. Gokudera reached into the pocket of his pants and took out a cigarette. He was about to light it up when-

"Stop!"

Gokudera froze and looked up to see some guy in all black and a mask running towards him.

"Stop him!"

The masked man noticed Gokudera and made a move like he was about to shove him out of the way. Green eyes narrowed dangerously. Nobody shoves away Smokin' Bomb Hayato! An array of dynamites was brought out from within the insides of Gokudera's jacket. Eyes glinted madly as Gokudera thumbed his lighter.

**CLICK**. A small fire lit up and with one swift **SWOOSH**, Gokudera had lit up all his dynamites. He threw the dynamites strategically at the masked man running straight for him and…

**BOOM!**

Dark clouds of smoke followed the series of explosions. Something white floated through the air towards Gokudera and the bomber grabbed it out of the air. He held it up and frowned at it. A teddy bear boxers? And are they holding hearts?

"HIEEEE!" Hands snatched the boxers out of his grasp. Tsuna panted, face red as a ripe tomato. Our protagonist realized what he did was quite rude and opened his mouth to apologize when his brain finally recognized the familiar face. "Gokudera-san?"

"Sawada…" Gokudera also gapped. "Why do you…" He pointed at the boxers which Tsuna quickly shoved behind him. Then it struck Gokudera. Those were probably his boxers! Gokudera felt his cheeks heat up at the thought that he was holding another guy's boxers.

"AH! That pervert! Where did he go?" Tsuna said, looking around. The smoke had now died off and the masked man was nowhere to be seen. Tsuna frowned. "Oh!" Tsuna turned to Gokudera and shyly smiled. "Um… Thank you for stopping that pervert and getting my… um… just thank you!" Tsuna blurted with a heavy flush.

"Don-don't mention it." Gokudera said, scratching his cheek, trying not to look at Tsuna. Just then…

**GROWLLLL~**

Now it was Gokudera's turn to turn a ripe tomato red. His hands flew to his stomach which growled loudly, demanding to be filled with food. He didn't get to eat breakfast and the job didn't hook him up with free convenience store food unfortunately.

Tsuna chuckled. "_Ano_… Gokudera-san, would you like to join me for lunch? I live just in the neighborhood." Tsuna pointed at his house that was visible in the distance.

Gokudera was about to protest but his stomach chose exactly then to growl again. He could only nod and follow Tsuna.

**5927**

Reborn watched his student open the front door for the Smokin' Bomb from the rooftop of the opposite house. Gokudera sheepishly let himself in. Reborn smirked. 'Step one complete.' Another presence on the roof caused Reborn to turn. "Good job. I half expected you to screw up. Good thing you didn't disappoint me, lackey."

"Reborn-senpai, you made me look like a complete perv!" The masked man whined as he peeled off the leather jacket and gloves that were burnt beyond help. Surprisingly, however, the skin underneath remained unburned. Well, he was the man hated by the grim reaper himself after all.

The purple nail polished hands pulled off the black mask coolly to reveal a face with a chain lip piercing and heavy purple make up. He threw the mask behind him and ran a hand through his messy hair that the wind mused; the afternoon sun shining down on him made him glow. Skull, his name was.

The cool, the dangerous, the man who was hated by the grim reaper hi-

Skull's stoic expression crumbled as crocodile tears filled his eyes and a pitiful whimper escaped his mouth. "Owww." He'd pulled off the mask too fast and the lip piercing had pulled with it. And now his bottom lip was throbbing painfully.

"Shut up lackey." Reborn rolled his eyes. Skull immediately shut up in fear and wiped his tears on the singed sleeves of his shirt. "So what do you think of my student?"

"He barely kept up with me." Skull scoffed, nostrils flaring proudly at the fact that he had more stamina than a kid 7 years younger than him. He watched through the large glass door that led to the living room as the Tsuna place a tall glass of orange juice on the coffee table in front of Gokudera in a rather frilly apron (Reborn had found great pleasure buying it for Tsuna) and headed to the kitchen to make lunch. "Are you sure that the kid has the potential?" Skull asked curiously, looking down at the house as well to watch the interactions between the Vongola heir and Smokin' Bomb. The young Italian bomber's face was in an amusing shade of fuchsia.

Reborn only tugged down on his fedora to shadow more of his eyes and the corners of his lips tugged up into a smirk.

* * *

Nanaco card = It's kinda of like a mix of a point card (loyalty program) and e-money card. You can use it for public transport and paying for convenience stores/ fast food places, etc.

Furikake = Dry seasonings that you mix with plain rice. You usually have this for your bento lunches to give it some flavors.

Otsukaresama = It's something people say at the end of their work shift. Like, 'good work today!' kind of thing.

Ano = Um.../ er...

If you like us enough to follow or favorite, please leave us a constructive review or just your personal thoughts and questions! **Although, we are most grateful and happy that you guy like the story enough to fav and or follow it, we like to hear from you personally. **Thank you again!


	5. Chapter 4: The Namahage Keyring Owner

A/N: Look who crawled out from under the rock?! **Terribly sorry for leaving you guys with nothing during the summer but with little to no human contact and zero inspiration, we experienced some major writer's block!** TT^TT We are both leaving for university soon so thought we could all celebrate! **Of course, with higher education comes more responsiblities but because it also means mandatory human interactions, it's possible we'll have more creative juices so please stick around for next chapters!**

Guest (1): Haha! **We are glad you loved it. Please continue loving it and supporting it!**

**general argon:** Omg! Me too! Skull is so under-rated sometimes! We simply love his character portrayal~ And thank you so much for your kind words! We are very glad that you liked our take on Adult!Reborn; **Gokudera is kind of tricky to write, especially since while he sees Tsuna's 'charms' but is not puppy-loyal to Tsuna yet so we struggle with balancing the feel of camaraderie with humour with him.** We are very pleased that you thought Gokudera was cool XD. We are pretty shit when it comes to updating but for you dear, we'll make the extra effort!

Guest (2): Reborn really enjoys teasing Tsuna too much! So much that even we sometimes have to think real hard where the teasing ends and flirting begins. Haha! **We'll try our hardest to get our engines running so please stick around for updates!**

**Lovely thoughts: Thank you! We are glad you find the interactions natural!** Sometimes, I think we are pushing it with Tsuna because Tsuna actually lives up to his 'dame' title but here he is already quite charismatic and loveable so we try to inject more comedy into him so please stick around for the next update!

ami: Hai gai ami-chan~ Watashitachiha, ami-chan ga sore o kiniitte iru koto o yorokonde imasu! ^^

**Guest (3):** Shhh! Tsuna doesn't know that he is Reborn's wife yet! XD **But can we really say he is Reborn's since the fic is all27? But we do focus on R27 more than others…**

lovleydragonfly: Thank you! We hope you loved it enough to stick around for more? Haha!

* * *

**Chapter 4: The Namahage Keyring Owner**

This week marked week 7 of Reborn living with Tsuna. And like every day since Reborn started living with him, Tsuna was cursing himself for not going to the Namimori shrine to pray away his 'once in ten generation of bad luck' because...

"Hahi!" The girl who was on her knees, snooping around in his front yard blushed a bright pink. Before Tsuna could do anything, she stood up, walked the short distance from where she was, to Tsuna and delivered a powerful punch to his cheek. "For looking up a lady's skirt, Haru will not forgive you!"

'Another weirdo has appeared.' Tsuna cried in his head as he fell back from the force of the punch. "Oww." Tsuna moaned, rubbing his cheek as he staggered backwards in an attempt to regain his balance. Tsuna frowned at the girl, Haru, who was staring at him defiantly. "What was that for?" The punch did not hurt much compared to many of Reborn's fly-swatter slaps but that didn't mean he appreciated being smack by a complete stranger in his own front yard.

"What a vulgar man!" Haru exclaimed, placing one hand on her hip and with her free hand, jabbed a wrathful finger at Tsuna. "Peeking at a young lady's vulnerables and pretending not to know why you were smacked? Why! This is the first for Haru!" Haru puffed out her cheeks. Tsuna could almost see streams of smoke coming out of her ears in indignant anger.

"Peeking at... what?!" Tsuna's jaw dropped, his own cheeks flushing in embarrassment. "I wasn't doing that! I would never do that! I was going to hang the laundry to dry when I noticed you sneaking around in my front yard." Tsuna defended himself.

Haru 'hmph'ed at Tsuna in a way that spoke volumes of her disbelief but then, she caught a glance of a laundry basket that was nearly overflowing. Wait... Haru looked around her and realized that instead of the concrete floor of the sidewalk, she was standing on the flat, grassy ground of a front yard.

"Hahi!" Haru seemed to finally notice that she was in fact intruding on another person's property and smiled sheepishly. "A-ahaha..." Haru laughed awkwardly before she bowed low. "Haru is terribly sorry for the misunderstanding! It seems while looking for Haru's prized possession, Haru wandered into your property. Sorry!"

Tsuna's eye twitched as he watched the girl alternate between apologizing and bowing. She was speaking in third person... This was definitely another weirdo. Tsuna wondered how long it would take for Haru to finish her spew of apologies before she realized that he'd sneaked away to call the neighborhood police on the landline regarding a suspicious person in his backyard. After all, who ends up intruding on another person's property due to a lost 'prized possession'?

Oh. Tsuna blinked a few times and sure enough, he saw the patches of mud dirtying Haru's knees. The rest of her legs were mostly clean from what he can see. For the mud to dirty only her knees, it was obvious that Haru was kneeling for a while. So the 'prized possession' story was not fake. Tsuna felt a pang of guilt for doubting the girl now. He quickly rifled through the laundry basket, grabbing one of the damp, freshly laundered towels and walked over to Haru. "Please use this for your knees." Tsuna said, interrupting her continuous apologies.

Haru blinked in surprise. She looked down and felt her face set aflame at the sight of her scuffed up knees. How embarrassing! Someone, a boy, saw her in such an unladylike manner! Haru snatched the towel with a loud 'thanks', turned a little from Tsuna and started to vigorously wipe clean her knees. Tsuna watched as layers of mud came off Haru's knees. It had rained yesterday and so the yard was slightly muddy. To have searched so hard for this lost object... 'It really was a prized possession then.' Tsuna thought to himself. 'Right!'

"What is it that you lost, Haru-san? I can help you look for it." Tsuna said, rolling up his sleeves and the hems of his school pants. Haru blinked up at him and Tsuna grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck in a similar manner. "Two pair of eyes are better than one, right?"

Haru looked surprised at the offer but grinned widely and nodded. They spent nearly an hour looking for Haru's prized possession: a _namahage_ keyring ('Definitely weird.' Tsuna had thought with a frozen smile when Haru told her what her prized possession was) but to no avail. There was no little red keychain of Japanese folk devil in his front yard. In the end, they had to leave together because it was time for school. Tsuna had to forgo doing the laundry and was silently praying that Reborn would not try to kill him when he got back from school.

Haru let out a dejected sigh, interrupting his prayers. "Where could Nama-chan be?"

"Don't worry Haru-san. When I get back home, I'll look for... err... Nama-chan properly." Tsuna said reassuringly as they stopped in front of the school gates of Namimori High School. Haru beamed and nodded. When Haru started to thank him again but trailed off mid-sentence, Tsuna realized he hadn't given her his name! How impolite. His mom would've abolished him if she was here. Nana can be quite stern about manners sometimes. Tsuna spoke quickly, his words coming out in his characteristic stutter at the fast pace of his speech. "W-we haven't properly introduced ourselves, have we? Sawada Tsunayoshi but e-everyone just calls me Tsuna."

"Miura Haru at your service!" Haru saluted with a grin. "Nice to meet you Tsuna-san! Haru is sorry again for punching you earlier."

Tsuna shook his head, waving his hand in front of his nose to reassure her. "A-ah! I am used to it so don't worry about it, Haru-san."

Haru blinked. Used to it...?

"Yo Tsuna!" Tsuna turned to see Yamamoto walking casually towards him and waved in response.

"I'll see you later then, Haru-san." Tsuna said to Haru with a final wave before he jogged up to the tall Baseball player.

Haru watched as the small brunet walked away and frowned as she continued down the pathway towards her school. 'Tsuna-san said he was used to it when Haru apologized for punching him. What could that mean?' Haru wondered, before she gasped. A terrible thought just entered Haru's mind. 'Hahi! Could Tsuna-san be abused at home?!'

Haru imagined a tall shadowed figure with a fedora laughing evilly as they threw tomatoes at Tsuna's poor form that was scrubbing hard at the floors in tattered clothing.

Another terrible thought entered Haru's mind. 'Hahi! Could Tsuna-san be abused at school?!'

Haru imagined the shadowed figure of the baseball player that Tsuna had jogged up to, laughing evilly as he threw fastballs over and over again, far into the baseball field where poor Tsuna was picking up the baseballs spewed around the field.

A hard determined glint reflected in Haru's eyes. 'Don't worry Tsuna-san! Haru-Haru will rescue you from your evil abusers!' Haru cried in her head, punching the air in an _Ultraman_ worthy pose.

"Ah mommy! Look!" A little blonde boy said, tugging on his mother's long skirt with one hand and pointing at Haru with another.

"Nagisa, don't look." His mother whispered hastily, tugging on her child's hand to pull him away from the odd youth.

T'is was the start of Haru-Haru's investigation.

2786

It was break time at Namimori High school. And as with all other classrooms, Gokudera's classroom was rowdy as well. He scoffed at his fellow classmates as he casually made his way to his table; at the girls who continued to sneak coy glances at him and at the boys who awkwardly avoided looking into his jade colored eyes. Gokudera leaned against the wooden back of his chair, pushing it to stand only on its two hind steel legs and popped a chewing gum in his mouth. He had gone out for a secret cigarette break... not that the break could be said to be very secret as the scent of tobacco wafted around him like perfume.

"Ah! Gokudera-san!" All eyes in the classroom watched as Tsuna approached the delinquent who was now... was he reading a book on extraterrestrial beings? In a foreign language?!

"Sawada." Gokudera acknowledged coolly.

"I know how I keep buying all the bags of the coffee beans you like… so I thought you would like this." Tsuna said, shyly pushing a bag towards Gokudera.

Gokudera's chair came crashing back to stand on all four legs as his body tipped it forward. "Sawada... you..." Gokudera choked out. In front of him, on the wooden table, was a blue bag of coffee beans with a familiar brand name. Lavazza. It was THE coffee beans. Gokudera swallowed hard. "Are you... sure you want to give this to me?"

Tsuna nodded.

Gokudera covered his trembling lips with his hand, holding back the grateful tears that were starting to form in his eyes. 'Sawada! You're such a good guy!' "I gladly accept!"

"Are you guys making nice now? Haha! Isn't that great?" Yamamoto grinned, turning around in his chair to face the duo. Their sitting arrangement had the bomber and the baseball player sitting side by side and Tsuna a couple seats in front of Gokudera.

Gokudera immediately scowled at the baseball player who squinted his eyes at the bag and read out the name of the product in broken English. "Oh? Is that coffee? I didn't think you were the type to drink coffee, Tsuna."

"Eh? Ah. I don't really drink it. It's actually for…. ('An evil freeloading hitman with a coffee addiction.' Tsuna mentally thought. Reborn, reading these thoughts from a tree outside the classroom disguised as a mama crow, started thinking of various humiliating punishments that he could put his student through before feeding a live worm to a very hungry and demanding baby crow) a person who is living with me at the moment. He is from Italy." Tsuna explained.

"Who said you could butt in the conversation?" Gokudera growled at Yamamoto who just chuckled. Gokudera clicked his tongue in irritation before turning to Tsuna. "Here Sawada, I have something to return to you." Gokudera reached into his bag and brought out several clean Tupperware boxes in a plastic bag. A microscopic blush appeared on Gokudera's face who lightly scratched his cheek in an embarrassed manner. "Thanks for last time. I ate it well."

After saving his boxers from the masked pervert in chapter 3, Tsuna had invited Gokudera to lunch. Not just any lunch though. A traditional Italian style lunch; complete with _antipasto, primo, secondo, contorni _and_ dolce_, and in the true Italian fashion, served an abundance of all of it. He even let Gokudera stay around for a _siesta_ after a cup of hand-dripped espresso (made from the same coffee beans that Gokudera has in front of him) and sent him home with several Tupperware full of food when Gokudera let slip that he lived alone and didn't cook much.

Gokudera hadn't had such a full, satisfying meal since he landed in Japan. The small brunet was skilled in culinary arts and had all the dishes to the 'T'. Gokudera rationalized that this must be because Tsuna had to cook for his freeloading Italian friend. *sigh* Gokudera wouldn't mind getting such pampering.

"It is my pleasure!" Tsuna beamed and Gokudera saw cherubs and Michelangelo sculpting the angels in the persimmon background of Tsuna's smile. Gokudera blinked rapidly and wiped his sleeves across his eyes several times, missing the way several others in the classroom do the same.

"Did you just see that?"  
"Dame-Tsuna just... smiled?"  
"Hey. Did you ever see Dame-Tsuna smile before?"

Reborn ticked off 'Phase two' on his Leon-transformed notepad. The Plan was coming along perfectly. "Hm..." Reborn's eyes narrowed at Yamamoto, reading his posture, built and how the baseball player interacted with others. "Yamamoto Takeshi," Reborn mused. "He has potential."

"Hm... I don't trust that shady one with the _Tako_ hairstyle." A soft voice said, a couple branches below him. The girl who was with Tsuna in the morning, Miura Haru, was watching Tsuna's moves through a pair of birding binoculars; completely unaware of the grown man decked out in a mama crow costume, feeding baby crows just a few feet above.

Reborn didn't feel any malice from the Japanese girl nor did he feel she was affiliated with any mafia family so he let her be. Plus, this would give his dame student some experience with girls. Why, when Reborn was a young lad, he-

2786

The day continued with Tsuna obliviously living his life and Haru trailing his moves and jotting notes as if Tsuna was an exotic member of the Cervidae family and she was a wildlife expert. Some of her observation included:

1\. Tsuna was widely ostracized and often times, he was mocked and ridiculed as 'Dame-Tsuna'.

2\. Most teachers uncomfortably avoided confronting the bullies and praised his apparently improving academic efforts in private.

3\. Other than the baseball coach and Math teacher, who openly defended and praised Tsuna (albeit the Math teacher was quite hesitant to), Tsuna's social circle consisted of maybe 2 people. Yamamoto Takeshi and a rude Tako.

Haru had felt absolute shame when she came to the conclusion that Yamamoto Takeshi was possibly one of the friendliest humans on Earth. The tall Baseball player talked to Tsuna when Tsuna was constantly avoided by the rest of his classmates. He also made sure to look out for the small brunet during their after-school club activities with the baseball team. He was a saintly man with a well-deserved fan group.

The rude Tako, or Gokudera Hayato as the school register listed him as, was incredibly short-tempered and ill mannered. Haru could not for the life of her, see why there was even a fan club in his honor. Or why the docile and soft-hearted Tsuna was 'friends' with him.

A slight buzzing from her skirt pocket tore her attention away from observing (**stalking**) Tsuna as he walked home. "Miura." Haru answered the phone in a cool and chic manner.

"President! We finally finished the Namahage costume for the bunkasai! We need your input ASAP!" Her vice president of the Midori High School's handicrafts club exclaimed from the other line.

Haru looked at Tsuna's retreating back and sighed. "I'll be there." She said, ending the call. She looked down at the ground, silently judging the height before jumping from the tree branch. Haru scared 15 different kinds of shits from unsuspecting Namimori students when she executed a perfect double front flip in the air and landed without a stumble.

Reborn and his baby crows gave it 9, 10, 10, 9.27 and a badly drawn picture of Reborn as mama Crow.

2786

"I found it!" Tsuna cheered as he held up the Namahage keyring. With the setting amber sun as the background behind him, Tsuna looked the very definition of victorious. The damp mud that had dried in the afternoon sun and became dirt stuck to Tsuna's sweaty skin, making it itch but Tsuna ignored it. After nearly 3 hours, he had found it at last. Haru's Nama-chan! The little bugger was hiding just behind the pole of the clothesline. Tsuna laughed triumphantly to himself.

"Dame-Tsuna," Tsuna's laughter was immediately silenced with a flinch at the sound of the baritone voice that belonged to a certain hitman. He turned mechanically to see Reborn draping himself across the replaced glass door. "If you're done playing around then get to work. The world's best hitman needs food." Reborn said.

Tsuna wanted to roll his eyes but dared not to do so in Reborn's presence. Reborn had trained him hard and long to level up his culinary skills because 'after all, the student of the world's best hitman must know how to cook or it'll be a disgrace to his title'. Tsuna also thought he heard Reborn say something about a mafia boss and how culinary skills would be useful for uncover missions or recognizing an assassination attempt involving food but at that time, he was cleaning his face of the creamy sauce that Reborn found unsatisfactory so he didn't really hear it properly.

**SWOOSH**

Something flew past Tsuna and hit the fence wall behind him. Tsuna turned mechanically and saw one of his tuna slipper wedged between the large crack lines in the concrete wall. Tsuna also felt something slide down his cheek and touched his fingers to it to find out it was blood. Tsuna gapped at the tuna slipper then at Reborn. The wind pressure from the throw had left a small cut in its wake. What monstrous throwing ability! Reborn held up the other slipper threateningly which contradicted the pleasant way Reborn said, "Go get some fruits for dessert."

Tsuna gulped at the sight of the dark aura Reborn was emitting behind him and wordlessly ran out of the front yard immediately. Once he was far out of Reborn's telepathic radius (Reborn scoffed. As if he would ever let his dame student out of his range), Tsuna pouted. That man just keeps ordering him around. It would be nice if he could pick up the groceries from time to time.

"Tsuna-sannn! Look at what my club members made!" Tsuna blinked before yelping. A large Namahage was running towards him at full force with two very large butcher knives in its hands. Of course, the knives were fake, made from carefully crafted foil, cardboard and rubber but our Tsuna didn't know that, did he? And not knowing the knives were fake or that a certain female was inside the suit and only wanted to show Tsuna the hard work put into the costume, Tsuna did what he was best at: running away. He instinctively started running the opposite direction at top speed. "W-Wait! Come back!"

'No way!' Tsuna screamed in his head, continuing to run. In his fear, he didn't realize the Namahage's voice was familiar, soft, high pitched and definitely a female voice. "Somebody help me!" He cried instead.

Gokudera paused and turned, the plastic bags in his hands crinkling as he did. He was walking home from another boring day of his part time work when he thought he heard something. A cry for help. He strained his ears for a couple minutes before giving up when all he heard were the sounds of crows cawing. 'It was probably nothing.' Gokudera shrugged and began to turn again when a body crashed into him.

"What the hell?!" Gokudera grunted and rubbed the back of his head that had hit the floor. Gokudera growled, ready to unleash his indignant anger when the head of the person straddling him raised up. "S-Sa-Sawada?!"

"Gokudera-san!" Tsuna said, his voice full of relief.

"What is-?" Gokudera was cut off when he caught sight of the Namahage running towards them, screaming Tsuna's name. Gokudera's eyes narrowed and he whipped out his dynamite sticks. He waited until the Namahage was a couple of feet away before he lit up the dynamites and threw them at the figure.

**BOOM!**

"Kyaaa!"

Gokudera blinked. "Kyaaa?"

Tsuna tilted his head in confusion. "Kyaa?"

The two turned to each other (with Tsuna still on top of Gokudera, a little detail that Gokudera was surprised to know that he didn't mind so much). "Kyaaa?" They chorused. The black smoke from the explosion cleared and there was the Namahage without its head. In its place was a familiar face coughing. "Haru?!" Tsuna exclaimed, quickly getting up from Gokudera (who felt a small, very very small and unexpected pang of disappointment) and ran to Haru's side. "Haru, are you alright?!"

"Tsuna-san..." Haru choked out between wheezes. She clutched Tsuna's hand and smiled weakly. "Haru is glad… that Tsuna-san is… safe..." She said, before her eyes fluttered close and her grip on Tsuna's hand slackened. Tsuna's eyes widened.

"Haru-san…?" Haru let out a feeble sigh and her whole body gave away. Tsuna's mouth opened and closed before he trembled visibly. "H-Haru?" He choked out.

Gokudera sighed and picked himself up from the ground with a 'tsk'. "Oye, woman," Gokudera called out, dusting his pants off. "Stop being so overly dramatic."

"Huh?" Tsuna looked at Gokudera with large teary eyes. Somebody looking that sad must be illegal because that look made the half Italian feel as if someone harpooned his heart to the floor.

Gokudera looked away. "T-that stupid woman is just acting."

Haru's eyebrow twitched and her eyes fluttered open to glare at Gokudera in an annoyed manner. "What a rude way of addressing a lady!" Haru said.

"A lady?" Gokudera raised an eyebrow before lifting one of his hands to his forehead. "Don't see any ladies around."

"You rude Tako!" Haru fumed.

A vein throbbed angrily against Gokudera's temple. "Tako?" He pulled out his dynamites again. "Say that again, I dare you." He said lowly.

"T-a-k-o." Haru said slowly.

"Thank god!" Tsuna exclaimed, drawing both of their attention. Tsuna was wiping away the unshed tears with a relieved smile. "I thought Haru was really hurt."

Haru felt incredibly touched and flew towards Tsuna, grabbing both of his hands. "Don't worry Tsuna-san! As Tsuna-san's rescuer, such second-rate, intimidation tactics won't work on me!"

"Whose tactics are you calling second-rate?" Gokudera growled dangerously.

"The second-rate tactics of an ill-tempered and rude T-A-K-O." Haru hissed venomously.

A couple angry veins throbbed against Gokudera's temple. In a deadly calm manner, he lit up his lighter. "We, Mafioso, believe in gender equality so don't think I will go easy on you."

Haru's eyes narrowed and she let go of Tsuna's hands as she, too, took up an offensive stance. "Haru Haru will not be defeated by the likes of you!"

"Guys... We should calm down..." Tsuna said, tentatively coming in between Gokudera and Haru. He was startled when the two turned in unison towards him.

"Butt out, Sawada!"  
"Please don't interfere, Tsuna-san!"

They turned to each other again and yelled, in perfect unison, "Don't speak at the same time as me/Haru!" This, of course, annoyed them further and caused them to scream more abuse at each other.

"Dame-Tsuna," A voice called and Tsuna gasped as the hair behind his neck raised. Tsuna turned mechanically and swallowed hard. Reborn stood a few feet away, fedora heavily shadowing his face and one hand stuffed into the pocket of his pants where Tsuna could make out the outlines of a gun. "I sent you to pick up some fruits an hour ago and here you are. Playing with your friends."

"W-wait! Reborn, I can explain!" Tsuna said quickly, waving his hands around in panic.

Gokudera's ears twitched at the sound of the name. He turned away from the battle (Haru indignantly yelled at Gokudera to focus on their fight). "Reborn?" Gokudera's eyebrows knitted together. He looked at the tall man in the ink black suit. Wait... The signature curly sideburns! This man was no doubt the World's best hitman!

"Chaos Hayato." Reborn greeted, nodding at Gokudera.

"Then Sawada..." He looked over at the small brunet who was still trying (and failing) to explain why he was still empty handed despite being gone for an hour.

Gokudera's thoughts raced. Reborn had called Gokudera to Japan so he could help the hitman judge if the Vongola heir was worthy of the title. Rumors were that Reborn was staying with the heir. Tsuna said a freeloading Italian was staying with him. The dots connected quickly.

"Sawada is the Vongola heir." Gokudera looked at the small brunet and felt a sinking sensation and grabbed at his chest. He... He is supposed to be the heir to the great Vongola family? Ah...? What is this...? It feels as though he was... "Betrayed." Gokudera muttered.

Reborn's sharp ears caught Gokudera's words and a smirk lit up on his face. 'Final phase.' "Dame-Tsuna, I'll listen to your excuses later. We have training to catch up to." When Gokudera's expression turned dark, Reborn knew he had hit the nail on the head. The silver haired male just turned wordlessly and left.

Haru blinked as she watched the 'Tako' leave without word. How weird that all of his fighting spirit just seemed to disappear. Wait a minute! He left in the middle of a duel! How rude! Why that little-

"Reborn!" Tsuna said, struggling as Reborn dragged him away by the back of his shirt. "J-just wait a moment!" Haru was surprised when a small Namahage (not unlike the Namahage costume she was wearing) was presented to her.

"Tsuna-san." Haru took the key ring with shaky hands. Tsuna just smiled softly at her and Haru's eyes widened. Pearls and flowers bloomed around Tsuna's smiling visage and Haru thought she heard trumpets being played in the background as well. Ahh... The smile was so prince-like~ Before the trumpets could reach the climax of the song, Tsuna was tugged away by the tall man in the suit ('His uncle?' Haru wondered to herself). "Thank you Tsuna-san!" Haru waved cheerfully at Tsuna who didn't return the gesture since he was starting to turn blue from the shirt digging into his throat and cutting off his oxygen supply.

Haru giggled to herself. "Tsuna-san is so kind."

Doki Doki.

"Hahi?" Haru brought a hand up to her cheek that felt warmer than usual. Her heart started beating quicker when she was greeted with the memory of Tsuna's princely smile. "Could Haru-Haru... be _fallingu in lobu_ with Tsuna-san?"

* * *

Namahage: A folkdevil of sorts that is commonly used as a symbol of admonishers of the misbehaving.

Antipasto, primo, secondo, contorni, dolce, siesta: Appetizer, first course, second course, side dishes, dessert, nap (usually taken after lunch/ midday meal)

Tako: Octopus

Fallingu in lobu: 'Falling in love' said in Haru's trademark accented English.

Like always! **THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR REVIEWS!** YOUR FAVORITES! **YOUR FOLLOWS!** **WE LIVE AND DIE FOR REVIEWS SO PLEASE LEAVE US SOME!** Also! Question to all! Everyone seems to be enjoying Adult!Reborn... so how does everyone feel about the kids as teens?! Let us know when you review or in the poll on our profile! THANKS AND LOVE!


	6. Chapter 5: The Vongola Heir

**A**/**N**: **What is this? Is this an update you see?!** Yes, my friends! Your eyes do not deceive you! **After a hiatus of nearly 6 months,** we're back with another chapter. **R**e**j**o**i**c**e**!

**General zargon: Thank you as always for your review! And poor Haru indeed! **Her rival is not only the Tako but literally EVERYONE Tsuna unwittingly charms.** Oh boy… she has no idea what is in store for her. **

Yuna: Thank you~ **all x Tsuna fics are so deserved because Tsuna is just too adorable**. You can't not love him~

**Lovleydragonfly: Thank you as always! **And we're glad that you like the ages! We hope you'll like what we've done for the younger characters of KHR**! We're not too sure on their ages just yet but when it comes, we hope you like it!**

Guest: HAHA! Thank you for thinking this unworthy fic is cute! HAHA! **You shall know how things with work out in this very chapter. Ah. But it's not so smooth-sailing for 5927 just yet.** Why? Because we enjoy torturing you guys ^^

**demonsLOver:** **OMG. Thank you so much for your review!** We're literally crying right now because you said the humor is so perfect. We're always the one who cracks REALLY BAD puns so a compliment to our humor is much appreciated~ How about a little hint? ***whisper* crossdressing Tsuna soon to come.**

Toraffles: EXCUSE ME! WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO USE SUCH CUTE PIC?! (I LEGIT DIE FANGIRLING FOR LAW. **It's 1 in the morning but seriously, I don't think people ever sleeps in Uni dorms. Right now some ass is vacuuming. Like WHT**). But thank you so much! We're glad you liked it!

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* * *

**Chapter 5: The Vongola Heir**

It was a slow day for the baseball club. The baseball club members had just finished their laps around the grounds and scattered to practice either individually or in small groups. Most of the 3rd years were coaching the 1st years' stances and giving advice on how to improve their pitches.

Yamamoto was also practicing his cannon-like pitches, inviting awe and admiration. There was no doubt that with Yamamoto on the team, Namimori's chances to go to Koshien* was greatly increased.

"With Yamamoto on the team, our school may actually take Koshien... must be what you are thinking, huh?" Enomoto, the coach asked from his seat besides Tsuna. Tsuna turned to the buff, older man who laughed loudly at the startled expression on Tsuna's face. "You have a very open face, Sawada! It's really easy to read you!" He laughed again.

"I - is that so...?" Tsuna said, rubbing the back of his neck. Was that how Reborn always seems to read his mind? (Reborn scoffed at this from wherever he was. As if his ability to read his dame student was from something so mediocre.)

"But I hope you don't think Yamamoto is our only shot. We have many good players on the team, other than Yamamoto!" Enomoto said seriously.

Tsuna looked back at the pitch and turned back to the practice with a small smile playing on his lips. The coach didn't play favorites when it came down to his team, huh? 'Ah... he really loves the team, doesn't he?'

"What? You don't believe me?" Enomoto challenged playfully, nudging Tsuna with his elbow.

"No no! I believe you, coach!" Tsuna said quickly, flailing his arms around. When Enomoto laughed again boisterously, Tsuna calmed down. "It's like you said, coach. Although Yamamoto is kind of like a genius player, with abilities handed down to him by the Gods of Baseball, our team is very capable."

Tsuna nodded towards the 2rd year standing on the pitcher's mound. "Hamasaki-senpai's skills as a pitcher may be weaker than Yamamoto's but he has great mental fortitude and is able to keep his cool against the strongest of opponents."

"Nishimura-san's strength in video gaming extends to his hand-eye coordination skills, making him an excellent infielder." Tsuna said watching the 2nd year who quickly reacted to a stray fast ball from a 3rd year pitcher. But instead of catching the ball, he moved out of the way calmly and pulled out a PSP from his pocket. Tsuna sweatdropped at this. "Although we may have to give him some incentive because he burns out quite quickly..."

"S-Sawada... you..." Enomoto choked out looking at the small, temporary manager. He didn't know that the student who was dubbed 'dame' by many of his teaching colleagues (especially Nezu-sensei) had such keen observation skills!

Ah! Wait, no!

Weren't there talks in the faulty room that Tsuna was actually improving rapidly from his terrible performances at Middle School? Oh! And even Enomoto himself noted that Tsuna's athletic skills during P.E were not as atrocious as when he was in Middle School!

"Hm... Does Toda-senpai normally batt right? I think he is more suited for batting left..." Tsuna mused to himself.

"What was that, Sawada?" Tsuna turned and Enomoto could swear that he saw intense amber eyes looking back at him but a blink later, Tsuna's eyes were back to soft honey brown.

Tsuna rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "It's nothing really..." Enomoto made a gesture for Tsuna to continue. "I was just thinking that Toda-senpai's dominant eye seemed to be his right eye and that senpai's open stance had to do with him trying to get a better look at the field. Maybe if he batted from the left..." Tsuna trailed off; his strong start turning into a meek mumble as the coach's eyes widened. "Like I said, it's nothing rea-"

Enomoto blinked several times, wondering to himself where was the stumbling, bumbling dame student from 3 years ago because in front of him, stood a different young man (although Tsuna still stumbled and bumbled). He tore away his gaze and looked at the 2nd year batter Toda. Having trained him since 1st year, Enomoto knew that Toda was indeed right-handed and that he was not exactly the best batter on the team but...

'Yamamoto!" Enomoto called out, interrupting Tsuna's self-deprecating comments. The allstar happened to be rifling through his bag for his water bottle near them and Enomoto got up from the benches to where Yamamoto was. Tsuna watched as they exchanged words and a few times, Yamamoto turned back towards Tsuna (Tsuna could only duck his head in a pretense of checking his attendance clipboard in his embarrassment). Yamamoto grinned and nodded to whatever the coach said and jogged away to the pitcher's mound.

Enomoto slumped back down on the benches next to Tsuna before he bellowed, "Todaaa!"

Toda looked around and pointed at himself. Enomoto nodded and Toda shrugged before he started jogging up to him and Tsuna, who was staring at the coach with a confused expression. "Yes coach?"

"Try batting from your left." Enomoto said. Tsuna let out a small, characteristic squeal of 'Hieee!' as his expression became identical to the one in 'The Scream' painting. Toda had a questioning look but nonetheless, nodded and jogged back to the batter's box.

"C-Coach! W-What are you-" Tsuna stuttered, flailing his arms again. Enomoto ignored him and instead focused his attention on Toda who quickly got into the batter's position. Toda switched hands from his right to his left and exchanged meaningful nods with Yamamoto.

Yamamoto took a deep steadying breath where he stood and immediately, his eyes glinted with determination. He pulled his arm back and threw one of his deadly fast ball (the improved version of the fast ball that accidentally knocked Tsuna out cold once upon a time in Middle school).

Strike!

Toda's jaw tightened as the ball landed squarely in the catcher's mitt. Yamamoto looked back at Coach Enomoto who gave a nod and once Toda was ready again, Yamamoto served out another fast ball.

Strike! Toda missed this one as well but he found that his swing did not feel as awkward as before. He got back into position. Yamamoto flashed him a good natured smile before he got serious again. And another fast ball was thrown at Toda-

THUNK!

Nobody went to catch the ball that landed right next to a stunned shortstop because what the hell?! Toda had never in the history of playing managed to hit one of Yamamoto's pitches. Heck, most of the team could not boast hitting Yamamoto's monstrous pitching at all but out of the 3 pitches Yamamoto threw, Toda somehow managed to hit 1 of them?

"WHOA! TODA!"  
"What the heck was that?!"

Toda stuttered, overwhelmed by the team crowding around him. "I... I don't know too. Coach Enomoto told me to batt with my left and-"

Heads turned to the coach who finally uncrossed his arms and landed a hard slap on Tsuna's back which forced him to step forward. "It was an observation our temporary manager made!" Enomoto shouted proudly before laughing.

Tsuna went red and shook his hands in front of his face quickly to deny the credits. Yamamoto chuckled to himself at his classmate's modesty.

"Dame-Tsuna did?!"  
"No way!"

Despite coach Enomoto trying to convince the team, they didn't believe him. Tsuna tugged the brawny man's shirt to say, 'it was alright and that he should let it go'. Enomoto sighed and agreed but now, seeing Tsuna in a different light, started asking him what he thought could improve the team dynamics.

**27**

Reborn, who was watching the interaction from the rooftop of the school building, smirked. Having gone through Reborn's Spartan training for nearly 2 months, Tsuna was steadily becoming a very capable candidate for Vongola Decimo. And it seems his dame student's Hyper Vongola Intuition had blossomed quicker than he expected.

Reborn tugged at the knot of his tie, sliding it down a little to give him more breathing space. "So. What do you think," Reborn asked, turning to the half Italian next to him. "Smoking bomb?"

Gokudera just watched as the small brunette grew flustered under the buff coach's attention but nonetheless, Tsuna shyly gave his opinions which the coach started to note down on a notepad he produced out of nowhere. So, Sawada really was the Vongola Decimo?

But... how could it be? Sawada had absolutely zero bloodlust. He scared too easily and in the rarer moments that he laughed or smile, he did it too freely. It was impossible for Sawada to be the Vongola Decimo. He'd be killed off brutally as soon as he stepped onto the playing field of the mafia world.

Gokudera shook his head lightly. This was no time to sympathize with Sawada! "Is it true? If I kill Sawada, I'll inherit the Decimo title?" Gokudera asked Reborn.

Reborn's fedora tipped forward to cast shadows over his eyes and nodded. Gokudera clenched his jaw. What the hell? How could Reborn so easily agree to his question like that? Didn't he keep Sawada under his wing for 2 whole months? Gokudera gritted his teeth together as he turned away from the World's Best Hitman. So, this was the mafia that he wanted so desperately to join.

'No hard feelings Sawada.' Gokudera thought, taking out a cigarette from his pack and placing it between his lips. He lit up the cig and breathed in the nicotine deeply. "It's just business."

**27**

"Great job today, Sawada!" Enomoto grinned, ruffling the hair of the temporary club manager. "The little observation you made really helped improve Toda's swing."

"N-no, it was n-nothing rea-really..." Tsuna stuttered but his modest little comment was drowned out by the coach's loud laughter.

"Man! If only the team can give up the dream of a female manager, you'd be great for the role!" Enomoto said before a thoughtful look appeared on his face. "Sawada, do you think you can dress up in a girl's uniform?"

"C-coach!" Tsuna's face proceeded to turn into a beetroot. Enomoto only laughed again before he dismissed the team with a loud 'Otsukare!'.

"Otsukaresama!" Tsuna chorused at the baseball club members as they packed up to leave. Coach Enomoto had to cut the practice short since he had to supervise the practice match that the boys volleyball team was having. Plus, it had started to rain as well.

"Sorry Tsuna. I'd stay and help but I need to go help out at my dad's restaurant." Yamamoto said with a sigh as he tugged his messenger bag's strap over one shoulder.

"D-don't worry about it." Tsuna said quickly. "You go help your dad. I can handle cleaning up on my own." There wasn't too much to do anyways. He just needed to sort out and put away the equipment.

Yamamoto nodded. "Okay then. I'll see you tomorrow!" Yamamoto said, running off before he looked back behind his shoulder with a large grin. "Oh and good work with helping Toda-senpai!" Yamamoto waved and laughed as Tsuna tried to deny it again.

Tsuna sighed affectionately at Yamamoto's retreating back before he started to clean up. Shielding himself poorly from the rain with his hand over his head, Tsuna dragged the equipment back to the equipment shed. Like always, a blue dog shaped origami awaited him. A smile bloomed on Tsuna's face as he unfolded the origami.

"Hello again my origami friend! Today's baseball practice was good! Coach was at tip top form and dished out many tips and advices today. But I think the real strategist was our manager!" Tsuna read out. A pleasant heat crept into his cheeks at the recognition. "He was the friend I told you about! Aha! But he and the transfer student seems to have made up now! I'm so glad!"

Then at the next few lines, Tsuna's lips pursed. "But... recently, I feel like I haven't been doing so well at baseball. What do you think I should do, my origami friend?" Tsuna finished reading. He wondered what advice he could give. He didn't know who this friend of his was so he couldn't exactly offer advice... Tsuna sighed and after much thinking, he wrote down a reply on a square of origami paper he started carrying. Soon, there was a white crane origami that sat on the shelf of the cleaning equipment locker.

Tsuna let out a sigh and looked up at the ceiling of the equipment shed. The rain was beating down on the roof hard and outside the small window next to the cleaning cupboard, the sky had taken on a dark, almost steel color. Tsuna hoped it wasn't a storm brewing outside because he didn't have his umbrella or his raincoat with him. Tsuna flinched at a sudden pressure directed at the back of his head. It was oppressing and dark...

'Bloodlust!'

Tsuna quickly whirled around and inhaled sharply at the sight of Gokudera standing just a few feet away from him. However, at the recognition of a familiar face, Tsuna calmed. "Gokudera-san," Tsuna heaved a sigh of relief, patting his chest softly as if that would help slow down his heart. "You surprised me there."

Gokudera said nothing and just stood at the mouth of the shed with his head tipped down. If it weren't for the small ember descending down the cancer stick, Tsuna would've thought that Gokudera was frozen in time. His eyes were shadowed by his hair but Tsuna only needed to read his posture and frowning mouth to know something was off. "Ano... Gokudera-san, are you alright?" Tsuna asked, inching forward. The tense atmosphere still held and despite mentally reassuring himself that Gokudera was a friend and that he (probably) wouldn't hurt him, Tsuna continued to feel the urge to run away.

Gokudera slowly pulled out his dynamites from the pockets of his pants. "Ah! Could it be that Gokudera-san has a migraine?" Tsuna asked before he shoved both hands into his pant pockets to take out his tuna patterned wallet.

The silver-haired bomber's grip on the hidden dynamites tightened but before he could lit up the dynamites, Tsuna held out a strip of Aspirin that he produced from his wallet at Gokudera. "I heard too much coffee can be pretty dehydrating and cause migraines sometimes. Although I think Reborn is an exception to-"

Gokudera's head snapped up, startling Tsuna with the sudden movement and Tsuna was confronted with a pair of conflicted jade eyes. "I..." Tsuna blinked. Instead of the intense and uncomfortable aura that Gokudera had been giving off, Tsuna's senses were now receiving a very hesitant and burdened aura. Gokudera was having some kind of internal conflict, Tsuna realized. "I-it's... it's alright, Gokudera-san." Tsuna blurted out. He didn't know why he said that. Only that... it felt right to say it.

Gokudera's eyes widened. And like a dog with its tail between its legs, Gokudera ran off, ignoring Tsuna's confused and concerned shouts. The raindrops that pelted down on him felt like bullets, wetting his hair, his clothes and his body. Gokudera gritted his teeth together as he ran, fingers still gripping his dynamites tightly. Cazzo*! He shouldn't have looked at Sawada. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have seen those trusting eyes that would now haunt his dreams. If he hadn't, he would've pulled off the job and lived as Vongola Decimo.

Cazzo! Cazzo! Cazz-

Gokudera's body collided with another body. Because of the fast pace at which he was sprinting, there was a large impact on collision but despite this, neither Gokudera nor the other person fell to the floor. "Ugh! What the hell?! Watch where you're going you little bastard!"

Gokudera side stepped the stranger and continued walking. "Are you ignoring me you little twerp?!" A meaty hand slammed down on Gokudera's shoulders and pulled him back.

3 faces, scarred and rough, glared menacingly at Gokudera. Gokudera recognized their pine green school uniforms as the uniforms of Kokukyo High School. The high school had the infamous reputation as a delinquent school where misfits and hoodlums gathered. Gokudera smirked. What great timing.

Later, when a certain leader of the disciplinary committee patrol the town to investigate the sounds of explosions that seemed to be becoming quite frequent, he found 3 knocked out Kokukyo students lying injured on the ground with little burn marks and dark soot powdering their features. The soot was probably from the explosions he heard go off. But seeing as any trouble had resolved itself already and the culprit nowhere to be seen, Hibari Kyoya simply turned and returned to the disciplinary committee's office in Namimori High school.

**27**

Tsuna was worried, to say the least. Gokudera seemed to be avoiding him after what happened yesterday. Even though Tsuna was sure that Gokudera would be working the evening shift at the 7-11 yesterday (since Gokudera had told Tsuna that he worked pretty much every day except for Mondays and Wednesdays), Gokudera was nowhere to be seen. Instead the grumpy store manager was manning the register and grumbled about 'irresponsible teenagers' when Tsuna asked about Gokudera.

And today, Gokudera had been ignoring Tsuna's hello's and attempts at polite conversation all morning. 'Is he feeling ill?' Tsuna wondered as he attempted the chemical formula that Nezu-sensei had him do in front of the whole class.

Fortunately, he had gone through the material with Reborn several times and understood the concept of it (being electrocuted for every wrong answer was a very good motivator for learning quickly) so his answer was correct. Nezu-sensei was none too pleased with it.

"Tell me Sawada, who's giving you all the answers huh? Because you can't possibly have worked that out on your own." Nezu hissed, pointing an accusatory finger at Tsuna.

"Eh? But I-" Tsuna started to say but was cut off quickly by the science teacher.

"What? Are you trying to talk back against your teacher?" Nezu snarled before smirking as Tsuna visibly deflated.

"Ah, sensei. Is there something wrong with Tsuna's work?" Tsuna and Nezu both turned to see Yamamoto whose eyebrows were scrunched up as he squinted at the black board. "I don't know but that looks pretty solid to me." Yamamoto said with a confused expression.

Nezu-sensei looked back at the black board. The answer was correct and the working out proved Tsuna knew what he was doing. But for this no-good student, who in Middle School consistently got shit grades... For _that_ Tsunayoshi to suddenly become a student who now got above average grades just because of some homeschooling tutor that started just 2 months ago? Preposterous! It also bruised his pride as a teacher that some random tutor achieved in making Tsunayoshi actually learn, something that Nezu had given up on doing since middle school.

Nezu looked back at the class and saw the questioning looks on his students. Normally, they would not doubt Nezu's tactics in humiliating Tsuna since Tsuna was ostracized by them but having the popular Yamamoto question him, the students were shaken.

"What? So Takeshi is right? Dame-Tsuna actually answered correctly?"

"Ehhh. What's Nezu's deal then?"

Flustered by the student's muttering and judging glances, Nezu snapped back to the black board and hastily said, "Sawada! Return to your seat!"

"H-hai." Tsuna said, quietly returning to his seat. As he slided into his seat, he saw Yamamoto giving him a 'thumbs up'. Tsuna gave a small smile in return and mouthed 'thank you'. Yamamoto just grinned widely which Gokudera scoffed at. This pulled Tsuna's attention to the half-Italian bomber who caught Tsuna's eyes and quickly looked away, resting his chin on a propped up palm. 'Oh no! Did I do something to offend him?!' Tsuna cried in his mind as he sat down. 'But what?'

While Tsuna frantically tried to remember the things he could've done to piss off the bomber, Gokudera was thinking about how he was going to have to kill Tsuna. Despite blowing off some steam, in the most literal sense via the Kokukyo students, Gokudera had spent the whole day yesterday thinking about killing Tsuna with conflicted feelings. He didn't even turn up for work yesterday which the manager did not take too kindly on and sacked him right away.

Killing Tsuna would mean that he would finally be accepted into a famiglia. And not only would he be accepted into a famiglia, he would become the boss of the most powerful famiglia of all of Italy's mafia: the Vongola. Gokudera would finally be able to take revenge on his father. Tsuna was just a stepping stone. He could do it. If he had thrown away the piano, the most important link he had to his mother, then what was one Jap?

That's right. Gokudera will do it and inherit the Vongola name. All he needed was the opportunity to get Tsuna alone so he could make his move.

**27**

That opportunity came unexpectedly quick, in the form of 'releasing the creative soul' or whatever hippie notion the art teacher had. And the mafia gods seemed to be smiling down at Gokudera because it just so happened that Ama-sensei paired Gokudera with our cute little protagonist and sent them off to the Gardening club's area with disposable cameras.

Gokudera discreetly glanced over at Tsuna who was taking a photo of one of the many pots of flowers that the gardening club members were nurturing. And while Gokudera was relieved that Tsuna had his guards down (which would make killing him that much easier), he cursed the brunette. 'What self-respecting mafiaso would be so careless in the presence of another man?!'

As if sensing his irritation, Tsuna jolted and turned to look over his shoulder at Gokudera who quickly snapped a random photo of the garden hose that was lying a few feet away before walking away. 'Cazzo! He sensed my killing intent?!' Gokudera brought the camera up to his face again, taking yet another random photo. 'Let's play it safe. Make sure his guard is truly lowered.'

"Ne Sawada, what kind of a person is your mother?" Gokudera asked casually. Tsuna blinked a couple of times at Gokudera, surprised that Gokudera was suddenly talking to him when he was avoiding him all morning.

"Kaa-san?" Tsuna thought for a moment. "She's... kind. I'd say almost to a fault but when she gets angry, she can become very scary." Tsuna chuckled and Gokudera stopped his pretense to look at Tsuna who carefully took a photo of the graffiti carved into the trunk of a Sakura tree. "She's kind of gullible as well and sees the best in people and despite having such a no good son, Kaa-san always says she is proud of the person I am and that she is blessed." Tsuna's eyes glazed over with a layer of tears. "Kaa-san is a truly wonderful person." Tsuna smiled. Gokudera was struck by the sincerity of the brunet's smile and couldn't help returning a small one himself. "What about you Gokudera-san? What kind of person is your mother?"

Gokudera looked away from Tsuna again. His mother, huh? How long has it been? Since he last saw her? Heard her voice? Gokudera gave a non-committed shrug. "I guess she was a lot like your mom. I... never really got to know her. She was a mistress, you see and I am from a mafia background." Gokudera waited for the shriek of fear that was trademark to Tsuna but instead he found Tsuna listening to him intently. "Did you know that the Mafia are really strict with their rules? Because my mother was a mistress, she was limited to seeing me, her own flesh and blood only thrice a year but she was always very cheerful when we met even though I did not know that she was actually my mother until... she was gone."

Tsuna did not reach out to comfort him, instinctively knowing that Gokudera would see such a gesture as pity and would react negatively to it. Tsuna simply listened, letting him speak and Gokudera found that he appreciated this gesture. "I... I kinda wanted to become a pianist like her when I was a kid. She once said these hands were good for playing piano." Gokudera said, holding up his left hand with an exasperated smile. "It's kind of a strange thing to say, right?"

Gokudera was surprised when Tsuna gently took Gokudera's hands in his own. Tsuna's smaller hands instantly warmed the cool of the rings on Gokudera's fingers. "These are beautiful, dependable hands. I think your mother is right, Gokudera-san. You have the hands of an artist. I'd like to hear you play someday." Tsuna said with a sincere smile and Gokudera felt his cheeks flush. He quickly pulled his hands away from the smaller male, making Tsuna think he had offended Gokudera with his words and apologized quickly.

Cazzo! He forgot that he had only brought up the topic of family to distract Tsuna and lower his guard! Gokudera glanced at Tsuna who was still apologizing and slowly pulled out his dynamites. This was the perfect opportunity to-

"You!" Gokudera and Tsuna looked up to see a group of Kokukyo students walking towards them. "That's the fucker that bombed us yesterday!" Gokudera saw one of the delinquents from yesterday pointing an accusatory finger at him and scowled. A fist was thrown without any warning but Gokudera wasn't a mafiaso for nothing; he dodged the fist with ease and jumped away from the group, creating a distance between them before dynamites were thrown at them.

"G-gokudera-san!"

The small voice coughed through the thick layer of smoke which reminded Gokudera of Tsuna's presence. Cazzo! Gokudera saw the small silhouette of Tsuna through the curtain of smoke and grabbed the boy, pulling him out of the smoke. "Run you idiot!" Gokudera barked, shoving the boy away. Tsuna gave Gokudera a terrified look but obeyed and ran away, stumbling on his steps as he did.

"Oh now you did it!" The angry and wounded delinquents roared as the smoke cleared. Before Gokudera could throw his dynamites, two of them tackled him to the floor. Gokudera snarled, struggling furiously in their hold and got rewarded with a heavy kick to the stomach. He gritted his teeth together from the pain, refusing to give these assholes the satisfaction of crying out. A dynamite rolled near his hands and Gokudera bucked wildly, throwing one of them off and punched the other one away to make a grab for the dynamite stick. Before he reached it, a booted foot slammed down on his hand.

"Gah!"

"You're not so tough without your explosives, are you?" The delinquent laughed, grinding the boot into Gokudera's hand as his underlings kicked at Gokudera until the silver haired Italian was coughing up a little blood.

"S-STOP!" The kicks paused. Gokudera looked up to see Tsuna, his soft feature pulled into a fierce glare when he saw that Gokudera's foot was being stepped on. "GET YOUR FOOT OFF HIS HANDS!" Tsuna yelled, charging towards the delinquent that was stepping on Gokudera's hand. Nobody was really expecting retaliation from such a small, effeminate boy (Were those amber flames coming out of his forhead?) and thus the delinquent fell off Gokudera's hand. Immediately Gokudera grabbed his dynamite and attacked.

Several explosions went off quickly, dousing the area with dark smoke. "What the-?! Where did they go?!" One of them growled, squinting into the smoke when he saw a silhouette and smirked triumphantly. There! He swung his metal pipe, throwing his shoulder into it so there would be a bigger impact when-

Thud!

"For disrupting Namimori's peace, I'll bite you all to death." Several gasps combined into one collective gasp of fear. Because that catchphrase was very well known across all of Namimori. The smoke finally cleared to show Hibari Kyoya with his tonfas that had blocked the metal pipe. Out of sheer horror, the metal pipe slipped from the hand of the Kokukyo student and Hibari gave a light smirk as his defensive stance changed into one of offense.

If anyone heard the screams that echoed throughout Namimori High, they'd think that there was a genocide happening... and to be honest, they wouldn't be completely wrong.

**27**

"Are you alright, Gokudera-san?" Tsuna asked immediately after he closed the door to the sports equipment shed where he'd dragged Gokudera to.

Gokudera weakly hit Tsuna on the head and grunted as intimidatingly as he could, "What were you thinking? Didn't I tell you to run?!"

Tsuna panicked. "Y-you did but I was worried! And when I saw them stepping on you like that, I-I just got really angry and! And! If I let you fend for yourself in that situation, I would never be able to forgive myself since your hands-! Hands are very important to pianists' right? And Gokudera-san, you want to become a pianist like your mother right?"

Gokudera was stunned into silence. Sawada was thinking of him so much? Of his safety? Of his abandoned dreams? Gokudera's head slowly ducked into his chest and his body trembled which made Tsuna shut up at once.

"Gokudera-san?" Tsuna said hesitantly as the trembling intensified. But Gokudera's head lifted to reveal an enormous grin on his face. Tsuna realized that Gokudera's body was trembling in an effort to control his chuckles. "Gokudera-san?" Tsuna started again, his concern for his half-Italian friend growing. Did the delinquents hit him too hard? Maybe they should go to the infirmary.

"I lost." Gokudera chuckled, his laughter subsiding. He turned to Tsuna and a smile slowly grew on his face as Tsuna blinked rapidly. "I lost." He repeated, before he patted Tsuna's head, silently marveling at the softness of it. "You are worthy."

Tsuna did not understand what Gokudera was talking about at all but he felt comforted by what he was seeing. The lack of tension between Gokudera's eyebrows, the absence of steel in his eyes and the easy, gentle smile made Gokudera look quite handsome. Tsuna felt himself blush and quickly reprimanded himself at being distracted from Gokudera's wounded state. "I'll g-go and get some first-aid supplies!" Tsuna said, scrambling out of the equipment's shed with graceless speed.

Gokudera rolled his eyes affectionately at Tsuna and wiped away the crusting line of blood he'd coughed up. He hissed when a bit of sweat got onto one of the small scabs on his knuckles from where his hand was stomped on and looked down at them. His hands were dirtied and covered in familiar dark soot, burn scars from years of perfecting his technique, blood specks that he'd wiped away and new cuts he'd earned today.

_'These are beautiful, dependable hands.'_

Gokudera snickered. "Beautiful? What a joke!" He laughed again, running his less injured hand through his hair. "Sawada really can't differentiate between what's ugly and what's beautiful, huh?"

_'I think your mother is right, Gokudera-san.'_

"He's totally not going to survive. Yup." Gokudera nodded to himself, crossing his arms over his chest and winced lightly at the tenderness of his ribs. This sobered him. He looked up at the roof of the equipment's shed and sighed. "He's totally not cut out for the mafia world, Reborn."

The wall next to Gokudera opened to show Reborn sitting in a throne-like chair, sipping coffee. "He is the rightful heir of Vongola. You know what is expected of him." Reborned said, gently putting the coffee cup down onto the saucer. "The question is what are you going to do, Smoking Bomb?"

_'You have the hands of an artist.'_

Gokudera chuckled. "Someone's gotta keep the Vongola Decimo alive, right?" Gokudera said, looking at Reborn lazily through the corner of his eyes.

Reborn's smirk was hidden by the cup as he took another sip of his coffee. Despite the relaxed body language of Gokudera's body, his jade eyes are drilling holes into Reborn. They were full of determination and possessed a wild look, as if daring Reborn to just try and keep him away from Tsuna. "He is perfect as Tsuna's storm guardian." Reborn muttered to himself as the wall closed.

Just as the wall disintegrated into nothingness, Tsuna came running in with a small first aid kit and heavy pants. Gokudera grinned at the boy before a coughing fit hit him, making Tsuna do an odd wiggling dance of panic. Gokudera laughed through the uncomfortable pinching sensation at his sides as Tsuna all but dumped the contents of the first aid kit on the floor and hastily began to administer first-aid to Gokudera.

_'I'd like to hear you play someday.'_

Tsuna disinfected and dressed his wounds with practiced ease, completely missing the fond smile on Gokudera's face.

"I'd like to play for you someday... Juudaime."

* * *

Koshien*: Hanshin Koshien stadium is the stadium where high school baseball tournaments are held. So basically, Koshien is the high school Baseball championship.

Cazzo*: The swear word, fuck.

**Okay. So, as you may know, we're in uni right now and there is an unexpected amount of workload and stress, which is why progress has been down in the dumps a lot (despite the fact that we have a pretty solid idea about how the plot and characters are going to be). That and the kinda disappointing amount of reviews have us wondering if we should continue. We'd hate to abandon Lost Stars or leave it on a hiatus (like most of our other fics) and we even hate writing this right now because it feels like we're guilt-tripping you guys but we're seriously debating if we should keep writing. To those who favorites, follows and most importantly, leaves reviews, thank you so much, and please know that you guys are the pillar of our motivation and the reason why we haven't given up on Lost Stars completely.**


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